The New York Times has eliminated a file of old Wordle riddles. The Website «Word Archive» closed recently, with a message on your site by pointing out that it was upon request of the New York Times, who bought Wordle earlier this year. “Unfortunately, the New York Times has requested the Wordle file to be deleted,” said the message, before directing visitors to the official Wordle website on the New York Times website. The creators of Wordle Archive also pointed out that they had created their own game, Word Grid, which is also free and involves players who try to form words using a nine-letter grid that restarts when a letter is used. The site seems to have been eliminated last week. Wordle Archive previously allowed the players to try luck in the previous Wordle riddles, without limit of one per day as the official website.
When he was contacted by ARS Technica about the demolition, a New York Times representative confirmed that they had been in contact with the website. “The use was not authorized and we were in contact with them,” said the representative. “We do not plan to comment beyond that.”
The New York Times bought Wordle last month in a seven-digit transaction, and on the same day they presented a trademark for the word “Wordle”. It is likely that this registered trademark allows the New York Time to have a legal case against anyone who uses the word “Wordle” on its website or use the same basic color presentation and game format. It would be much more difficult for the New York Times to claim the property of the underlying Wordle rules, although its registered trademark could be applied to any imitation or a copy that an average user could confuse with an official Wordle product.
Millions of people continue to play Wordle every day and, until now, the New York Times has maintained the game as a free. However, many players have seen their Wordle streak broken in recent days due to several complicated riddles.