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0 pointstorstenvl2y ago0 comments

I doubt it. The existence of the words themselves is a fact, which is not copyrightable. Only their arrangement can be. Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991)

However, to be copyrightable, the arrangement has to be expressive, i.e., it must "possess the requisite originality because the author . . . chooses . . . in what order to place them."

My strong suspicion is that Wordle's word list is randomized. Not a chosen expression of the author.

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lupire2y ago

The selection is expressive.

https://www.copyright.gov/comp3/chap300/ch300-copyrightable-...

The Originality Requirement for Compilations

A compilation may contain several distinct forms of authorship:

• Selection authorship involved in choosing the material or data that will be included in the compilation;

• Coordination authorship involved in classifying, categorizing, ordering, or grouping the material or data; and/or

• Arrangement authorship involved in organizing or moving the order, position, or placement of material or data within the compilation as a whole

phire2y ago

Indeed. The creator of wordle started with a reasonably exhaustive list of ~13000 five letter words. That list won't be copyrightable.

But the first prototype wasn't so fun, because it would often pick a word the player didn't even know existed.

So the creator (and his partner) manually classified the entire list based on if they knew the word or not; splitting the list into two groups, words which might appear as solutions and words that won't appear as solutions but will still be accepted.

This manual classification step and splitting it into two groups makes a very good argument for the wordlists meeting the criteria for copyright.

Source: https://slate.com/culture/2022/01/wordle-game-creator-wardle...

torstenvlOP2y ago

What's your basis for that? I'm very skeptical. Intuitively, whether a word is within the working vocabulary of a sample of the population is an objective fact, not creative expression.

Do you know of any case law to the contrary?

And, as it turns out, it was the author's girlfriend who categorized each of the words. Not the author. If there is copyright in the selection (which I doubt), NYT doesn't appear own it.

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