| Supplemental arguments to my previous comment. A lot of the elements of Wordle fall under at least one of the following uncopyrightable categories: 1. Accessibility and user input methods. Can you press keys on your actual keyboard? Can you use a mouse? Can you tap buttons on a screen? An on-screen keyboard is non-novel for mobile phones and provides extra accessibility for desktop computers. (Bennett Foddy's QWOP [1] game has a creative input combination, but with respect to accessibility the choice of obeying someone else's key bindings should be as valid as using different key bindings: copyright should not override accessibility. I also think that the merger doctrine applies to just about every user input method.) 2. Cultural norms. Green usually means something good in the US. In a game, correct is good. 3. Software norms or game norms (tech-related subsets of cultural norms). The on-screen keyboard should be centered in the top, bottom, left, or right of the game board. You wouldn't make the keyboard and the game board off-center, since that would be abnormal. 4. Efficiency. Centering the keyboard in the top, bottom, left, or right is a more efficient use of screen space than putting the keyboard at in the bottom-right corner of the game board. 5. Quality of life feature. The keys on the on-screen keyboard change color to match the colors of the submitted letters on the game board. My memory lapse when I context switch my eyeballs from the game board to the on-screen keyboard matters much less than if the on-screen keyboard were to stay one uniform color the entire time. Putting the same information in multiple places (correct letters vs incorrect letters, etc.) is just better in a way that shouldn't be exclusive behavior to the original Wordle. 6. Game difficulty determined by simple parameters. I can't quantify simple, but changing the number of chances in Wordle (the height of the board) will almost never be creative. In comparison, adding enemies to a platformer game level might be creative depending on where the enemies get added and what kinds of enemies get added. 7. Simple or obvious choice variations. I can't quantify simple or obvious, but surely NY Times can't have a monopoly over 5-letter Wordle-like games. You shouldn't have to change the number of letters to make a clone. The same applies to the shapes of the letter containers. Square corners vs. round corners is simple, and also falls under the merger doctrine [2] (relatively few choices => the idea of the choice merges with the expression of making a particular choice => making a particular choice is not copyrightable because of the idea–expression distinction). What's left after taking away all of those? Not much. The way the game messages (instructions, win messages, lose messages, etc.) were written are creative, so I admit that clones shouldn't copy the wording. The choice of color for "right place, wrong position" is creative (insofar as my "yellow is [a culturally normed color meaning] half-good" is unconvincing), so clones shouldn't use yellow for the same meaning either. The code? I speculate that the FOSS clones didn't copy NYT's code. The word list? Thank goodness the US doesn't have database copyright [3] (skim Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co. (1991) [4]). Wordle is like Hangman. Yes, there is creativity in the way people draw the body parts of the to-be-hanged man, but most of the game elements are uncreative, should not be exclusive to anyone, are ideas rather than expression, and/or are expression too closely tied to ideas (merger doctrine). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWOP [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_distin... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right#United_States [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R.... |