The New York Times has issued a takedown notice to Wordle clone Reactle, impacting a further 1900 games in the process.
- READ MORE: Here’s why some people just hate ‘Wordle’
Not only was Reactle a spelling-based game heavily inspired by Wordle, but the open-source project also contained instructions on how players could create their own take on the game. It was popular as well, with gamers able to utilise non-english languages and pull from a more specific pool of words for their take on the game.
However, The New York Times recently filed a DMCA takedown notice to Reactle creator Chase Wackerfuss.
“I write to submit a revised DMCA Notice regarding an infringing repository (and hundreds of forked repositories) hosted by Github that instruct users how to infringe The New York Times Co.’s (‘The Times’) copyright in its immensely popular Wordle game and create knock-off copies of the same,” reads the notice, with Reactle soon removed from Github.
The New York Times extended the notice to include the 1900 projects that were built in “bad faith” by the Reactle code.
Got a DMCA takedown notice for my github repo that's a wordle clone except every day the word is just "chunk"
— Tom Bombadil (@Authw8) March 6, 2024
“Unfortunately, hundreds of individuals have followed these instructions and published infringing Wordle knock-off games that The Times has spent the past month removing,” said The New York Times. “Gameplay is copied exactly in the repository, and the owner instructs others how to knock off the game and create an identical word game”.
Since The New York Times acquired Wordle for a figure in the low seven-figures two years ago, the company has been battling a number of spin-offs. Taylordle usedyrics, tested a player’s geography skills and created their own take on the game – .
