Activision wins ruling, regains control of ModernWarfare3.com

by Mike Schramm on Sep 7th 2011 8:15PM

ModernWarfare3.com is back in Activision's hands.

The issue of the web domain ModernWarfare3.com, originally spotted thanks to a (presumably unofficial) Battlefield 3 promotion and later outed by DNS service GoDaddy, has been settled. You guessed it: Activision and its lawyers have prevailed. The National Arbitration Forum has decided unanimously in favor of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 publisher, saying that the three criteria necessary for a domain name transfer (that the name is confusing, the holder has no real interest in the domain name, and the name is "being used in bad faith") have all been met. The three-member panel has ordered that the domain name be transferred back to Activision.

Currently, the domain name appears to be offline, but we presume it'll redirect right into the official Modern Warfare 3 site as soon as Activision is done.

Too bad for Battlefield 3 fan and Florida resident Anthony Abraham, who tried to argue both fair use, and that the term "modern warfare" was generic enough to have a life outside of the video game world. Hopefully he's still got ElderScrolls5.com sitting in his back pocket, just waiting for a competitor to promote.

Via: Fusibile.com
Source: National Arbitration Forum

Tags: activision, arbitration, call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3, decision, domain, lawyers, microsoft, modern-warfare-3, modernwarfare3.com, national-arbitration-forum, pc, playstation, ps3, xbox

Reader Comments (79)

I don't think Activision was wrong per se, but come on dudes, plan ahead next time.

@A Sandwich I think they are both equally wrong.

@A Sandwich

Totally right. Activision publicly dropped the ball on this one. But cyber-squatting is just low. Delinquent behaviour remnant of the turn of the millennium.

@A Sandwich

As long as he gets compensated in some way, I see no beef here. Hilarious though I found this to be, brash dickheadedness shouldn't be easily defensible in a court of law.

@koehler83
Though the good thing about this case is it once again prove cyber squatting/slander doesn't fly. So that way we're not going to have (for example) marioparty10.com be registered and be a gay porn site, atleast for long.

@A Sandwich I want to eat you. To the fridge.

@Miranda Lawson

You can eat me anywhere, Ms. Lawson.

This comment is ignorant. They have a trademark and prior art, that is called planning ahead.

@A Sandwich

*purchases modernwarfare4.com*

*waits*

@Haizeus The compensation should be in the form of a MW3 Console bundle. Just for kicks.

@A Sandwich
seems like we will about this again next year. did anybody try to browse the site modernwarfare4.com,it seems someone already bought it and its not activision and knowing activision a fourth modern warfare is not out of their minds.

@PedoJokerBear

LOL modernwarfare4.com has been taken for a while, so luckily we get to see the sequel to this kind of thing next year.

@A Sandwich Then let's get started.

This was inevitable.

He should have had to 1v1 Bobby Kotick in MW3 to see who gets the rights to the domain name.

@APCMice

-_-

@mguniverse
:)

*Grabs www.elderscrolls5.com*

Hey, Bethesda! I took your idea! Now what?

@Red Runner

*grabs Scrolls*

Haha, take tha-wait what, why are Bethesda's lawyers calling me?

O:)

Dude tried to sell me the domain like 6 months ago.

@Vcize
If you had done legit work with it, like an actual CoD fan site, you might've gotten it boughten out from you or more then likely the courts would've denied Activision's sieze.

@The Aquacharger

That's what it was for, but he was asking too much.

He tried to sell it publicly afterwards.

@Vcize
Yeah domain squatters try to sell for outragesouly high. My domain name I got the .net for but left the rest alone. Then someone bought the .com,.org., and .biz and tried to sell me them each for 1k. Even sent me a letter in the main telling me that if I wanted them it'd be 1k each. My mom freaked out over it, and then I explained it to her. A few months later the offer went down to 300 each (again message out of the blue) then it was 300 for all. Then I was told $50 for all. Now I can go to any domain registery site and buy the domain names for normal prices.

Cue Activision hate in 3..2..1..

@880Cloud088

hmm, still cant find a reason why someone should like them though.

HATE IS OK (Y)

Dicks

@Helghast102
How so? I mean I hate Activision and their policies, but they're in the right here. Ignore the fact that you hate Activision and see it from a normal buisness standpoint. When people browse the internet they enter the name of the game usually for the URL. I've seen people enter Supermariogalaxy.com for the SMG website. When MW3 does launch and if this website had been still up it could've potentially hurt their sales. That's something every buisness has to protect.

@Helghast102

Yeah how dare they try to protect their own IP and products.

You are so cool for hating a game and company that has done nothing to you, please tell us how to be as cool as you. /s

@Rofler
If they were really protecting their Ip they should have planned ahead of this guy, but they didn't, so they should have paid the guy a reasonable price for the domain HE BOUGHT, but they didn't either and just drcided to send him a fleet of super lawyers.

@eNriqeu

Absolutely - they could've given him the $25 he paid to GoDaddy.com and parted ways amicably

Other than that the legal precedent is quite clear

@The Aquacharger

For all that common sense logic there, why didn't Activision buy up the domain years ago, along with modernwarefare4.com, modernwarfare5.com, and etc.? Instead they wait until the last minute and then sue someone who registered the domain ahead of them. I think that's what Helghast meant by his/her comment.

@The Aquacharger

Hey, be fair now. The antecedent of "dicks" is unclear. The poster could have been referring to either party as being guilty of high crimes and dickery.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!

@latin trident

WOOHOO! Go Kotick! :D

So Activision bullys the little guy?

@Silent Killer01 and thats the way it is big fish eat small one

Off topic but can anyone else see the Slavery news post on the main page? If not (it seems to have dissapeared) but here's the link http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/07/slavery-the-game-revealed-as-a-viral-ad-for-dutch-tv-history-s/

Guess who owns "www.finalfantasyXXXVI.com" .......MWAHAHAHA!

@DethLocke
Not you, apparently.

@DethLocke

Deus Ex: HR owes you some royalties!

Though I may be off on some numerals, there...

1v1... you spawn camper.

@araiza I'm probably the only guy on this whole website that understood what you meant lol

Hopefully they'll remember to get domains for the next CoD next year.

@ColorblindMonk
hell they have the domain name for keyboardhero last I remember.

Man, that sucks.
...inconsequential comment complete.

They went to an Arbitration court? Then its no surprise that they would rule in favor of the companies that pay them. I also don't see how Activision could "regain" control of something they never had to begin with.

@(Unverified)

Because they own the trademark Modern Warfare. You could be the first to register www.cocacolaseven.com but you would lose it to the CocaCola Company. This is the only proper result under the law if you don't have a legitimate reason for the website. If they went to court instead of arbitration, the result would have been the same but at ten times the cost and five times as long in time.

"Too bad for Battlefield 3 fan and Florida resident Anthony Abraham, who tried to argue both fair use"

Fair use works to an extent in domain arbitration, but is really part of the three rules they use to test.

", and that the term "modern warfare" was generic enough to have a life outside of the video game world."

Great, except his "content" was video game related, namely redirecting to a competitor's site... which is both behaving in bad faith and having no real interest in the domain. And, is name confusion since the video game Modern Warfare 3 is Activision's.

the internet should not be regulated in this fashion, get your hands out of my pocket!

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Activision wins ruling, regains control of ModernWarfare3.com

Reader Comments (79)

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:18PM A Sandwich said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:23PM 880Cloud088 said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:26PM koehler83 said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:33PM Haizeus said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:33PM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 9:44PM Miranda Lawson said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 10:35PM A Sandwich said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 11:11PM jsx92 said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 11:11PM PedoJokerBear said

Posted: Sep 8th 2011 2:31AM Dead Reckon said

Posted: Sep 8th 2011 5:11AM RevolverShot said

Posted: Sep 8th 2011 11:07PM birdizzle87 said

Posted: Sep 12th 2011 7:39PM Miranda Lawson said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:19PM Vidikron said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:19PM APCMice said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 9:28PM kentuckyfried said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:21PM mguniverse said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:34PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:22PM Red Runner said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 11:43PM RogueJedi86 said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:22PM Vcize said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:24PM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:26PM Vcize said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:30PM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:23PM 880Cloud088 said

Posted: Sep 8th 2011 6:42AM commenter7 said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:24PM Helghast102 said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:42PM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 9:14PM Rofler said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 9:52PM eNriqeu said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 10:40PM OnToGloryReturns said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 11:41PM RogueJedi86 said

Posted: Sep 8th 2011 10:04AM JCDoe said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:24PM latin trident said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 9:15PM Rofler said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:26PM Silent Killer01 said

Posted: Sep 8th 2011 12:48AM eilegz said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:27PM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:27PM DethLocke said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:30PM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:40PM Haizeus said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:31PM araiza said

Posted: Sep 8th 2011 5:04AM ChainSmoker said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:32PM ColorblindMonk said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:35PM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:40PM Schlecht said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:41PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:53PM vidguy said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:42PM Powerlord said

Posted: Sep 7th 2011 8:46PM Tradio said

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