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I still have mixed feelings about this one. Because if let's say someone is learning web dev and thinks of building such clone and open sources it on GitHub, isn't that stopping people from learning?
Edit: Seems like the author does not want to fight NYT and hence disabled the repo. I think that's ok and I'll do the same (they also want all forks to be gone)
https://web.archive.org/web/20240306171920/https://github.co...
I bet some NYT is planning some changes to Wordle use/tracking so they have to clamp down on the competition. They will likely requiring NYT login just to play, or adding additional ads to page
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IANAL. So long as you own a legitimate copyright, you can send a DMCA takedown about whatever you want. That doesn't mean it's 100% legally robust.
Sending a fraudulent DMCA notice can open the sender to fines, penalties, and legal costs and damages.
> (vi)A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
As for justifying the claim of infringement, the sender only needs to claim good faith (512(c)(3)(A)(v)) [1]:
> (v)A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
The person whose upload was taken down can file a counter notification, but must dispute the takedown under penalty of perjury (512(g)(3)(C)) [1]:
> (C)A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.
In Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. (2015), the Ninth Circuit decided that the copyright holder (or at least the sender of the DMCA notification) must consider whether the user's uploaded material is fair use before filing the notice, but the user's burden to disprove the copyright holder's claim of good faith remains exactly the same as before the Lenz case. From the case text [2]:
> To be clear, if a copyright holder ignores or neglects our unequivocal holding that it must consider fair use before sending a takedown notification, it is liable for damages under § 512(f). If, however, a copyright holder forms a subjective good faith belief the allegedly infringing material does not constitute fair use, we are in no position to dispute the copyright holder's belief even if we would have reached the opposite conclusion.
Or as the Harvard Law Review put it [3]:
> In short, the fair use determination does not have to be correct or reasonable; it just has to have happened. The court in Rossi held that the jury therefore had to determine if Universal’s actions sufficiently approximated a fair use analysis (even if not labeled as such) on which it could have formed a subjective good faith belief regarding fair use.
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512
[2] https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2015/09/14/1...
[3] https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-129/lenz-v-universal-...
Archived: https://archive.is/D03zW The relevant part seems to be the mention of "React Wordle" as well as: > The Times owns U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0002342355 in Wordle as an electronic file and computer file for a videogame. The Times’s Wordle copyright includes the unique elements of its immensely popular game, such as the 5x6 grid, green tiles to indicate correct guesses, yellow tiles to indicate the correct let…
Archived: https://archive.is/D03zW The relevant part seems to be the mention of "React Wordle" as well as: > The Times owns U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0002342355 in Wordle as an electronic file and computer file for a videogame. The Times’s Wordle copyright includes the unique elements of its immensely popular game, such as the 5x6 grid, green tiles to indicate correct guesses, yellow tiles to indicate the correct let…
Yellow to indicate the partial correctness of a correct letter in the wrong position? Probably the most valid part by far of the notification. Still stupid though, since yellow in the green-yellow-red traffic light color trinity can mean "between completely good (green) and completely bad (red)". Is the clone's use of yellow merely copying of NY Times' expression? Or is it an agreement to follow a "yellow is half-good" cultural norm too/instead?
Having an on-screen keyboard directly below the grid? The merger doctrine protects copying of the positioning [1]:
> A broader but related concept is the merger doctrine. Some ideas can be expressed intelligibly only in one or a limited number of ways. The rules of a game provide an example.[14] In such cases the expression merges with the idea and is therefore not protected.[15]
...
> The merger doctrine has been applied to the user interface design of computer software, where similarity between icons used by two different programs is acceptable if only a very limited number of icons would be recognizable by users, such as an image looking like a page to represent a document.[17]
There are only so few ways to reasonably orient/position an on-screen keyboard relative to the rest of the game elements without confusing the user. Top, bottom, left, right. Some of those four are less reasonable on different screen dimensions. (Sanity check: you're not gonna gonna force everyone else to put the on-screen keyboard off-center, are you?) Check out the case of the banana taped to a wall for an analogous merger doctrine case about angles rather than positions [2].
The existence of an onscreen keyboard is a functional element, and functional elements are ideas. The idea–expression distinction makes ideas uncopyrightable. My knowledge of copyright is US-centric, but I think the following argument from the Europe Union would fly in the US [1]:
> As stated by the European Court of Justice in SAS Institute Inc. v World Programming Ltd., "to accept that the functionality of a computer program can be protected by copyright would amount to making it possible to monopolize ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and industrial development."[7]
An onscreen keyboard is more accessible to people without working physical keyboards (phone users? broken keys?) or who don't want to use a physical keyboard because of their own functional preferences (or personal challenges, which are obviously not the game developer's expression. think "no A button" challenges). Additionally, having the keyboard's colors match the board's colors reduces the cognitive burden on the user of remembering which letters can't be used when the user looks at the onscreen keyboard.
The 5 wide grid is an uncopyrightable game rule. 5 is the length of a valid word. Changing the width of the game significantly changes the validity of the player's options. More substantially, the merger doctrine (only a small number of reasonable, distinct options = not copyrightable) applies to word lengths.
The 6 height grid is an uncopyrightable rule. You get 6 chances. Fewer chances means harder game. A particular game difficulty should not be exclusive to one party and therefore should not be copyrightable.
References to Wordle are a trademark issue. Does nominative use [3] in trademark law allow people to say "my word game is based off of ?" Not sure. But I doubt that the clones' uses of the name "Wordle" cause market-changing customer confusion about which games are and aren't affiliated with NY Times.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distin...
[2] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/20/court-finally-dismisses-...
I'm getting Tetris Corp vibes...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sending a fraudulent DMCA notice can open the sender to fines, penalties, and legal costs and damages.
In theory. But the DMCA is significantly skewed in favor of copyright holders (and senders of DMCA notifications on copyright holders' behalves). The only "penalty of perjury" part for senders is claiming to be the copyright holder or someone authorized by the copyright holder to send the takedown notice (17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(vi)) [1]: > (vi)A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and un…
I got the same. Did make a clone and localised it, and then forgot about it. Apparently, every cloned project was in the notice list. Deleted and forgot. Treating it as a case study how to protect the rights. One might say that it is against freedom etc., but in my opinion this makes intellectual capital a value. E.g. I now believe it is worth to invest in innovations and so on. (It does not mean I will do it as I la…
And you comply. But you're not sad about it - in your opinion it makes intellectual capital a value. E.g. you now believe it is worth to wear a particular color of a particular apparel first and so on.
The problem: it was never stated by some kind of an authority, that the bully was right. He might as well have been wrong, and you granted his wish to remove your shoes simply on the basis of, to put it lightly, not being assertive enough.