License of popular dictionary word lists (e.g. SOWPODS, TWL)? Copyright? Trademarks?

Question

(I'm not sure if this off-topic. I found a lot of voted-up questions about software licenses and this is related. Plus, I'm sure many of us have had the situation that we need to use a dictionary in our code)

I'm making a (maybe commercial) word game and need to use a good word dictionary for checking words. The most common dictionaries to use are the SOWPODS or TWL lists that are used Scrabble tournaments; see here: http://www.scrabblist.com/ (I have nothing to do with this site by the way).

I've seen loads of websites offering these two dictionaries for download and loads of word games advertise that they use them. However, I cannot find any licensing terms attached to these dictionaries wherever I download them.

For the players of my game, I'd want to say what dictionary I'm using (e.g. "this game uses SOWPODS"). However, I'm nervous about what I can do legally.

Does anyone know about if you can copyright lists of words? Does anyone know the licenses of TWL and SOWPODS? TWL and SOWPODS don't seem to have trademarks on them but I'd like to know for sure. I cannot find any good sources for this information.

EDIT: Great, now the top result for "SOWPODS license" is my stackoverflow question. :)

Answer 1

Good question. Actually word lists, dictionaries, etc. of the type you mention are in fact protectable by copyright. (It doesn't mean that every one them is copyrighted, but as a group, they are indeed eligible for protection under the Copyright Law, which means you might want to assume it is copyrighted to be safe.

The legal rubric (under the US Copyright Law) is "compilation"--and it protects certain literary works even though the underlying information is not new (or more precisely, the creator of the work didn't actually create the underlying content). The justification for this is that the while the content is not new, the dictionary, etc., is eligible for protection under the Copyright law if it constitutes a "unique selection, coordination or arrangement [of pre-existing material]". (It's the same legal theory that allows copyright for anthologies of fiction, poetry, that sort of thing.)

Answer 2

Probably WordNet is a bit much for what you need but it's license looks pretty open.

Answer 3

I can assure you with absolute certainty that the OSPD4, though available all over the internet, is copyrighted by Hasbro. In general, the people at Hasbro must have indigestion or insomnia and just stay up all night searching for copyright infringements.

Anyhow, our little game used OSPD4. We just received our official Hasbro cease-and-desist letter. Sigh.

No news on SOWPODS or TWL. I was hoping you could tell me.

Laurie

Answer 4

The Scrabble OWL and OSPD are absolutely copyright protected and their unauthorized use will ensure a letter from Hasbro sooner or later.

The "SOWPODS" and the "TWL" are not official Scrabble word lists. From Hasbro's official civil complaint against Scrabulous:

39.There is no "SOWPODS Scrabulous Dictionary"; the website instead uses the official international tournament word list.

40.There is no Scrabulous "Tournament Word List;" the website instead uses the OWL that is edited and published by Hasbro's authorized licensee as described in paragraphs 21 to 23.

Full complaint in PDF format here: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/20080724_Hasbro_complaint.pdf

Answer 5

I would suggest that you obtain some expert legal advice. That is the only way you are going to be sure.

Answer 6

Actually here is a simple solution for you:

Just use the 'copywrited' compiled word list, use software to reorder it into oblivion, then feed the entire finished list into a hashtable (which doesn't maintain any specific order anyway, but why not). Then serialize your hashtable into binary. Then compress the binary, then output it to disk.

Read your finished list in as a binary hashtable. If they CAN copywrite/compile the list of words (which is a retarded concept), surely its only the complete list and in the order specified. Otherwise every single one of us (and this very post I am writing now) would be guilty of infringeing on their word list.

I am fairly certain that order does matter. Hashtables have no defined order at all. Good luck!