Creators of a Shetland dialect version of Wordle, I Hear Dee, have been told it has to shut down.
The New York Times, which owns the copyright to Wordle, has threatened the Scots language game, called Wirdle, with legal action, saying it may have a breach of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Linguistics expert Prof Viveka Velupillai, who is part of I Hear Dee, said the issue would affect hundreds of minority language versions of the game. She described the issues as “utterly ridiculous”.
She said: “Frankly, every time anyone used an offshoot of Wordle there was an acknowledgement about the original source. All of those users were an enhancement to the New York Times Wordle, because every time anyone used that they would be aware of the fact that the inspiration was the original Wordle.
“That made the original Wordle look like a really inclusive and inspirational game. That impression of course now has been reversed. We find it very questionable, we don’t see how word games in different languages can be an infringement on each other,” she said.
“Our Wordle and all the minority language Wordles in the world are free, there’s no overlap with the English version because its different languages.
“It’s a bit like saying you can’t have a word game in Dutch because you have a similar word game in German, it doesn’t really make sense.”
What is Wirdle?
Wirdle is the Shetland Islands’ version of Wordle, which was created and developed by Welsh software engineer Josh Wardle.
The Shetland version of the game had more than 20,000 users from 113 different countries.
Developers said Wirdle brought Shetland into the modern world and was developed by I Hear Dee with the aim promote the dialect.
Why is the New York Times taking legal action?
The New York Times has taken issue with games inspired by Wordle and believes Wirdle is a “knock-off” of Wordle.
They said: “The Times has no issue with individuals creating similar word games that do not infringe The Times’s “Wordle” trademarks or copyrighted gameplay.
“The Times took action against a GitHub user and others who shared his code to defend its intellectual property rights in Wordle.
“The user created a “Wordle clone” project that instructed others how to create a knock-off version of The Times’s Wordle game featuring many of the same copyrighted elements.
“As a result, hundreds of websites began popping up with knock-off “Wordle” games that used The Times’s “Wordle” trademark and copyrighted gameplay without authorization or permission.
“GitHub provided the user with an opportunity to alter his code and remove references to Wordle, but he declined.”
