The New York Times is fighting off Wordle look-alikes with copyright takedown notices

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS and GAETANE LEWIS
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Times is fighting off Wordle “clones.” It’s arguing that numerous games inspired by the mega-popular word-guessing game infringe on its copyright protections. After Wordle skyrocketed to internet fame, hundreds of copycats have emerged over recent years. And the Times, which purchased the game in 2022, is now sending takedown notices to people behind some of the look-alikes. In a prepared statement, a spokesperson said the news company took action against one user on software developer platform GitHub who created a “Wordle clone” project that provides instructions on how to create “a knock-off version” of Wordle, and others who shared his code. Still, impacted developers and some legal experts are skeptical.