(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. :)