Activision has won a court case against the man who bought the domain ModernWarfare3.com back in July and redirected it to the Battlefield 3 homepage.
"It appears that the Respondent supports the game Battlefield from the game developer Electronic Arts ("EA")," Activision stated in the legal documents at the time.
"EA is one of Complainant's principal competitors in the video game industry, and Battlefield game competes in the marketplace with Complainant's MODERN WARFARE games and its other military-themed shooter games in the CALL OF DUTY series."
ModernWarfare3.com owner Anthony Abraham argued during the case that the term "modern warfare" is generic and is not monopolised by Activision.
Activision in turn was required to prove that modernwarfare3.com is identical or confusingly similar to its trademark, that Abraham has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain and that domain name was registered and used in bad faith.
We doubt Activision found it too hard to do so and a three-member panel ruled in the publisher's favour.
Comments
10 comments so far...
theaface on 8 Sep '11 said:
It's the rarest of things that I side with Activision, but I can see why this was an easy and probably right decision to make. The guy had his fun for a little while, but ultimately we don't stand for domain names being abused in other walks of life, so it shouldn't be any different here.
StonecoldMC on 8 Sep '11 said:
The guy couldnt possibly have thought that he would have won this case.
People might not want to see it, but Acti were the ones being wronged.
STE MO on 8 Sep '11 said:
This is so wrong. He took the time to register the domain name and spent lots of hours making his site a hit. Why should he have this taken away by the deep pockets of Acti. Such a shame. I was championing this as the new Bible
Jensonjet on 8 Sep '11 said:
Anthony Abraham sounds like a dick! While I agree that the term modern warfare is generic, Modern Warfare 3 clearly is not. What's amazing is he thought people would be stupid enough to accept his argument. I suspect the idiot thought he could make a lot of money eventually selling the name to Activision. Incidentally who goes out of their way to buy a domain name for a game they hate? Sad, obsessed, dumb, immature c*nts like Anthony Abraham I suppose! I suppose he's now looking into owning more 'generic' terms that happen to be the names of games he hates.
KMakawa on 8 Sep '11 said:
Activision were the ones being wronged yes, however only up until the point that it started redirecting to Battlefield's site. I still think a website has a right to do whatever they want to do with that webspace/domain. If a site sets up propaganda of another site, then thats they're problem, and to suck it up.
I personally see this as another case of "If publisher does not like something, throw a bit of money and a court case and get it their way."
But ah well, freedom of speech and opinion isnt much these days.
Paranoimia on 8 Sep '11 said:
Okay, they won the battle... but let's hope they lose the war. Comprehensively.
And no, I don't hate CoD. I just dislike Activision/Kotick.
TheLastDodo on 8 Sep '11 said:
If Acti hadn't been so complacent in buying up domains, we'd never have had this non drama.
http://www.modernwarfare4.com
gmcb007 on 8 Sep '11 said:
It was evident that they had won as soon as the site was taken down a couple of months ago. Money talks and s**t walks.
Mastermue on 8 Sep '11 said:
Whatever happened to freedom of expression? He owned the domain so why shouldn't he do what he wants with it?
(And just to make clear, I really don't give a crap about MW3 or BF3)
WHITEyy118 on 8 Sep '11 said:
Hush down people. Anymore negatives about Activision and CVG might be shut down.