The New York Times has used a DMCA take down notice to remove an open source Wordle clone called Reactle
This to me sounds like a misuse of DMCA - it’s original open source code not stolen code, so the only “infringement” is dubious around whether you can clone a game or if a game belongs to whoever “owns” it. I can see they could have grounds to take the project to court to establish whether their copyright ownership of Wordle prevents anyone making their own version, but using DMCA for independently made code seems like a big overstep. Two corporations (Microsoft and the NYT) making decisions about whether software can be posted, and the poorly thought out DMCA rearing it’s head again.
My thoughts exactly. By this reasoning, Candy Crush Saga could get taken down for copying Bejeweled.
I used to maintain a wordle clone. I was meticulously making sure that any changes in the NYT word list would be reflected in my app as well, the goal was synchronization because the secret to wordle is that we’re all playing the same game… until we’re not. I haven’t touched that repo in months. The NYT can suck it.