DMCA'd

[purplecat]

Via Github I have received a DCMA takedown notice for the repository containing the code for my Doctor Whordle game. Apparently the New York Times is going after the repository I forked the base code from and all forks.

Anyway the takedown message referenced

1. Use of the word wordle
   
2. Green and Yellow colour scheme
   
3. 5 by 6 grid
   
4. Keyboard below the grid
   

Now my current version of the game doesn't do any of that beyond keyboard below the grid. The Keyboard is now above the grid. Admittedly my game does have a 5 by 6 grid in Random mode but since wordle doesn't have a Random mode...

I've then jumped through some slightly convoluted hoops to delete the entire history of possibly copyright infringing* commits from GitHub. I'm not sure if that worked but I have responded to GitHub stating the changes made and wait to see if they delete the repository or not. Even if they delete the repository it's not clear to me that the actual web app will go down since it's on GitHub pages but, presumably, they will get to that eventually.

* Honestly, IANAL, but I am dubious that you can claim copyright for a 5 by 6 grid with a keyboard below it, but nor do I have time nor energy to argue with the NY Times about this.

Comments

[senmut]

Well heck.

[purplecat]

Indeed! I can sort of see how it's happened but the takedown request is an awfully blanket "anyone who forked this repository" - particularly since the repository is a fresh implementation - it's not nicked Josh Wardle's code.

[romanajo123]

Wait seriously?

[purplecat]

Indeed seriously. I understand Josh Wardle sold wordle to the NY Times in part because he didn't know what to do about all the monetised clones, so I can sort of see how it got here, but my version isn't harming anyone.

[sixbeforelunch]

Oh, another reason to dislike the NYT. Not that I needed one...

Sorry this happened. :(

[purplecat]

I've learned a lot about copyright in games in the past 24 hours. I'm pretty sure I'm not infringing anything but whether the NY Times can be convinced remains to be seen.

[isis]

Ugh. Maybe the OTW would help? (But I understand not having the time or energy.)

[purplecat]

That's a thought. A lot depends on what is going on here. "This repository and all its forks" is an awfully broad description and it may be that GitHub is just waiting to see which of us write back to explain how we're not infringing copyright because, to be fair, the original repository is a clone of wordle (just written with a different set of internet technologies) but a lot of the forks have then adapted in various ways.

[shivver]

Thoroughly sucks but what can you do?

I asked around at my company (since most of us come from game development backgrounds and have had to deal with this at one time or another) about what copyrights can protect, and basically, the answer to the question about keyboard below grid is "sorta". Copyrights don't protect ideas, but rather the expression of the ideas - copyright protects Bejeweled from clones, but doesn't prevent people making their own match-3 games.

So, NYT can't prevent people from making "guess letters in a word" games, but they can prevent (or try to prevent) copies of their Wordle, such as using the word itself. The color scheme, grid size, and keyboard below the grid is questionable. Maybe all of them together, making the game look like theirs, is copyrightable, but we don't think an individual piece is. Maybe "keyboard under a grid in a letter-guessing game" is, but it's still really vague.

Everyone agrees that the NYT's claims probably wouldn't hold up in court. They also agree that probably no one will bother trying to take it to court.

The other point they brought up was that the NYT might have a case about the forking of the Github repo. They said it would all depend on what the license was at the time the repo was forked.

[purplecat]

Yeah, the last 24 hours have been a bit of a crash course in copyright as applied to games.

I don't think the forking itself can be the issue. The guy who created the base code, Chase Wackerfuss (great name!), as I understand it completely recoded wordle from scratch so there is no question that he has copyright for the code and the right to license it for forking. The NY Times' beef seems to be that he advertised the code as base code for a "wordle clone" and gave instructions on how to create a clone from the code.

*As an aside I'm also a bit dubious that one can claim that the code that enables a copyright infringement is, in and of itself, a copyright infringement however, moving on...*

At present GitHub has only threatened the code I have in my repo, not the game I'm hosting on GitHub pages - but I suspect that is probably because they/the NY Times have not made the link between the two. They know about the repo because they've traced all the forks of Chase Wackerfusses base code and it's Chase they are mostly going after.

Anyway, I responded to their email and listed all the ways my game is different and, as of now, my repo is still in existence.

I mean, if the worst comes to the worst, I simply take down the doctor-whordle on GitHub pages and host on my own website because I'm 99% sure NT Times will never find it, but it would be a pain to do because my website isn't currently set up to host a react app but, you know, how hard can it be to get that working? And also everyone would lose their streaks but, you know...