Activision wins ModernWarfare3.com dispute

In July, the website ModernWarfare3.com drew the attention of military shooter fans when it began forwarding all traffic to the official website of Electronic Arts' competing military shooter, Battlefield 3. It also drew the attention of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 publisher Activision, which filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum.

That complaint has been resolved, as domain-tracking blog Fusible is reporting today that a three-member panel has sided with Activision in the matter and ordered control of the URL transferred to the publisher. As of press time, the site was down.

Among the key issues in the case was that the site was forwarding traffic to a direct competitor of Modern Warfare 3, something that the former ModernWarfare3.com registrant described as a temporary mistake, and not evidence that he was running the site in bad faith. In issuing its order, the panel called the claims of the unofficial site's former operator "uncompelling" and "not credible."

Originally registered in March 2009, ModernWarfare3.com billed itself as "a 100 percent unofficial fan site dedicated to the Modern Warfare series," as well as "a parody of Modern Warfare 3." The site had for some time openly criticized the Activision shooter as a retread of the series, prompting Activision to send it a takedown notice related to copyrighted content that had previously appeared on the site.

For more on Activision's shooter, check out GameSpot's previous coverage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.