Activision Angst - Update: But has given in!

The popular Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory community ran fan site Enemy-Territory.com has today received a notice demanding they hand over the www.enemy-territory.com domain name.

This is a copy of the letter sent to site owner EasyRider

Quote

Dear Mr. Martin:

I am the Online Manager for Activision Publishing, Inc. Our company publishes and distributes the successful WOLFENSTEIN: ENEMY TERRITORY™ game and the new ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS™ game, both of which were developed by id Software. Note that ENEMY TERRITORY® is a registered trademark and WOLFENSTEIN: ENEMY TERRITORY™ and ENEMY TERRITORY: QUAKE WARS™ are trademarks of id Software, licensed to Activision.

It is our understanding that you have registered the domain name enemy-territory.com and are using it in connection with a website devoted to our games. Our company and id appreciate greatly your interest in the games and your efforts in creating and maintaining the site. It is loyal fans such as you who make our efforts in this field worthwhile.

I am writing to explore the possibility of purchasing the enemy-territory.com domain name on behalf of Activision. In exchange for the transfer of the domain name, our company would be willing to pay $250 to you and provide a copy of any one of the published Activision games. Of course, you would be free to continue to operate your site, but would have to use another URL.

In view of the fact that your domain name includes id Software trademarks and thus could be transferred without charge, I believe that this is a very fair offer. If you agree, please contact me so that we can work out the details of the transfer. I appreciate your consideration, and look forward to receiving your reply.

Sincerely yours,

___________________
John Horniblow
Online Manager
Activision Publishing, Inc.

Enemy-territory.com is the nets largest ET resource site, hosting 2,535,390 downloads of Windows and Linux ET files since its creation in November 2002.

Baffled by Activision’s sudden interest, and their derogatory offer of only $250 EasyRider has threatened to have his 400,000 member site boycott all id, Activision and SplashDamage products - should they follow through with this threat. Conservative estimates put the actual worth of the domain name at upwards of $3000, ten times that offered by Activision.

Due to my general ignorance regarding Trademark law, I consulted the online encyclopedia Wiki for an answer. Why the sudden U-turn by Activision, how can they do this?

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Trademarks rights must be maintained through actual use of the trademark. These rights will diminish over time if a mark is not actively used. In the case of a trademark registration, failure to actively use the mark, or to enforce the registration in the event of infringement, may also expose the registration itself to removal from the register after a certain period of time.

It is however, debatable whether Activision have a legal leg to stand on. The [enemy-territory.com] domain is registered in Germany, although legal copyright law applies, Activision would have to pursue this issue through the German courts, in which it is expected the judge would favour the established website, should Nate refuse to hand over the domain.

Affected domains could include enemyterritory.fr and quakewars.fr and any other including - "Enemy Territory", "Enemy Territory:Quake Wars", "Quake Wars" or "Wolfenstein".

Source



UPDATE:

Since e-t.com publically raised this issue, Activision seem to have backed down. This is their reply.

Quote

Hi Albert,

We are very happy for you to keep the domain name and wholeheartedly support communities that have helped develop the ongoing awareness and success of id titles. As such the request you received is based on upon Activision’s concerted marketing effort to promote ids newest title, Enemy Territory Quake Wars. Its certainly not an attempt to the thwart your amazing work to date, take over your site nor pose a legal threat to your community. It would be great if you would provide a link from your domain to http://www.enemyterritory.com, and as a side note we are in the process of localizing that site in both French and German languages to support those territories and active gaming communities with information in their local language.

I did notice your posting on http://www.splashdamage.com/index.php?name=pnPHPbb2&file=viewtopic&t=15096 it is a little misleading to what our intentions are, and we are not interested in taking over your site. I think it would have been better to have sent me the email below to clarify our request rather than publicly air a misunderstanding.

Thanks

Jh

Enemy-Territory.com now consider this issue resolved.