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I Got A Cease And Desist From The New York Times

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I made a game called "Wordle in 2" that is based on Wordle. (Similar game mechanics, you can see it here)

I got an email from the New York Times for violating their copyright on Wordle. I since removed all references to the word Wordle (e.g. I renamed the game from "Wordle in 2" to "Word in 2").

Question 1: Do you think that is sufficient?

Question 2: Am I personally at risk in any way, financially or otherwise?

Location: New York

Full text of the DMCA compalint:

By way of background, on January 24, 2022, The Times purchased the popular word game “Wordle” (and all associated intellectual property rights with the game) from the game’s creator Josh Wardle, including but not limited to the common-law trademark rights to the “Wordle” trademark, the copyright in the game, and the trade dress associated with the game. The Times’s acquisition of the game was widely reported in widely available news sources. The Times owns numerous trademark registrations for “Wordle” in connection with, among other things, word and spelling games and word puzzles, including U.S. Reg. No. 7,140,643; U.K. Trademark Reg. Nos. 3,749,710 and 3,753,162; European Community Trademark Reg. No. 18651261; and pending U.S. applications, 97/248,806 and 97/510,050. The official Wordle game can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html. The following Vercel-hosted website contains The Times’ copyrighted content: https://wordlein2.com/. In particular, the website contains a knock off version of the same copyrighted Wordle puzzle owned by The Times. The layout, color scheme, and gameplay are identical to The Times’s “Wordle” game. See https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html. The infringing website also uses The Times’s “Wordle” trademark without authorization. Clearly, this is a blatant attempt to trade off The Times’s well-known “Wordle” brand and confuse consumers into believing they are playing a legitimate shortened version of the Wordle game, when they are not.

submitted by /u/wordlein2
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