Categories
Featured Movies News

Disney’s LucasFilm registers ‘Star Wars Attack Squadrons’ domain names [UPDATED]

Star Wars Attack Squadrons

Disney has gone out and registered domain names for a yet to be announced project called Star Wars Attack Squadrons.

The registrations include names like StarWarsAttackSquadrons.com, SWAttackSquadrons.com, AttackSquadrons.com, and AttackSquadron.us, to name just a few.

Most of the names were registered under LucasFilm through the brand protection agency Corporation Service Company (CSC).

Though it’s unknown whether “Star Wars Attack Squadrons” will be a movie, a theme park ride, or some other product, it’s possible a video game is in the works with the same title.

Earlier this year, Electronic Arts and Disney signed a multi-year agreement for EA to develop Star Wars games.  And it may be nothing more than a coincidence, but EA is the registrant of AttackSquadron.com (WHOIS) and AttackSquadron.net (WHOIS), which do not resolve to a web page.  EA has owned the names for years according to WHOIS historical records.

For now, it will have to remain speculation, though considering the number of domains that were registered, Disney seems very interested in protecting this intellectual property.

Here are just some of the domain registrations made under LucasFilm:

attacksquadron.org (WHOIS)
attacksquadron.us (WHOIS)
attacksquadrons.org (WHOIS)
attacksquadrons.net (WHOIS)
attacksquadrons.us (WHOIS)
attacksquads.org (WHOIS)
attacksquads.net (WHOIS)
attacksquads.us (WHOIS)
starwarsattacksquadrons.org (WHOIS)
starwarsattacksquadrons.net (WHOIS)
starwarsattacksquadrons.us (WHOIS)
starwarssquad.org (WHOIS)
starwarssquad.net (WHOIS)
starwarssquad.us (WHOIS)
starwarssquadrons.org (WHOIS)
starwarssquadrons.net (WHOIS)
starwarssquadrons.us (WHOIS)
starwarssquads.org (WHOIS)
starwarssquads.us (WHOIS)
swattacksquadron.org (WHOIS)
swattacksquadron.us (WHOIS)
swattacksquadrons.org (WHOIS)
swattacksquadrons.net (WHOIS)
swattacksquadrons.us (WHOIS)

The above list is not an exhaustive list.  The same names also appear to have been registered in the .biz and .co.uk extensions.

The names were all registered on July 26, 2013, but none resolve to a web page at the time of this story.

In the past 24 hours, they were moved over from CSC’s domain servers to Disney’s.

Disney has yet to announce anything official.

UPDATE 1 August 16, 2013: So far, nothing has surfaced at this point to explain Disney’s plans behind “Star Wars Attack Squadrons”, but there has been a new development. The domain names, AttackSquadron.com and AttackSquadron.net, which EA has owned for years, changed registrants to CSC Corporate Domains, Inc. in the past 24 hours and were moved to Disney’s DNS servers on dig.com.  You can look at the WHOIS records here and here to learn more.

Talking about this story: Game Informer, Joystiq, IGN, The Escapist, Computerandvideogames.com, 411mania.com, Digital Spy, ZoKnowsGaming, games.on.net, ScreenCrush, Game Rant, Metro, PCGamesN, PC Gamer, Gameranx, tweakers.net, GameZone, gamona.de, GameSpot, JeuxVideo.com, Comicsblog.fr, NeoGAF, VG247, ComingSoon.net, NZGamer.com, Comic Book Movie, Superherohype.com, SPONG, iDigitalTimes, Xbox 360: The Official Xbox Magazine, Eurogamer.net, Game Revolution, Playstation Lifestyle, GameStar, Multiplayer.it, PlayFrance, Play3-Live, play3.de, Softpedia, Screw Attack, playm.de, FOK!, Gamereactor Sverige, PC Games, All Games Beta, Hardcore Gamer, EGMNOW and Vandal

Categories
Disputes Featured National Arbitration Forum Technology

Microsoft takes ownership of XboxOne.com and XboxOne.net domain names [UPDATED]

XboxOne.com domain name

Microsoft’s lawyers have officially taken ownership of the domain names XboxOne.com and XboxOne.net after filing a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) back in late May.

Both domains just changed registrants to Microsoft, c/o The Richard Law Group, a law firm that often represents Microsoft in domain disputes.  Last year, the firm helped secure XboxPhone.com and XboxTablet.com.  Those names are among a long list of names recovered at NAF by Microsoft.

The victory makes Microsoft the first company to secure the matching dotcom domain of its next-generation video game console.

Sony doesn’t own PlayStation4.com nor has it filed any type of public complaint.  Playstation4.com re-directs visitors to PSX Extreme, a video game website that covers PlayStation news.  Playstation4.com is currently owned by Poise Media Inc., according to WHOIS records.

Nintendo recently suffered a somewhat embarrassing domain defeat, after its complaint over WiiU.com was denied.

The official ruling by NAF has yet to be published on its website, but should appear any day now.

Here’s a look at the WHOIS record for XboxOne.com, showing the updated record:

WHOIS: XboxOne.com

UPDATE 3 July 24, 2013: In a separate but related case, Microsoft took ownership of Xbox1.com (WHOIS). The company filed a dispute over the domain in early June, and like XboxOne.com, the dispute was withdrawn from NAF before a ruling was issued.

UPDATE 2 July 19, 2013: Both domains have switched over to Microsoft’s domain servers, but instead of directing users to the official Xbox website, they redirect users to its Bing search engine.

UPDATE 1 July 17, 2013:  The case with NAF was withdrawn according to an update posted on its website today.  While it’s unknown exactly why the case was withdrawn, chances are the previous owner decided to hand over the names to Microsoft’s lawyers instead of waiting for a ruling by a panel.

Talking about this story:  JoystiqGameSpot, IGN, Ars Technica, Computerandvideogames.com, Eurogamer.it, Game Politics, Game Revolution, EGMNOW, Gameranx, GameZone, Geeky Gadgets, Giga.de, Jeux Video.fr, MeriStation, Neowin, OnlineWelten.com, playm.de, Shacknews, Ubergizmo, Vandal, VideoGamer.com, VG247, Canaltech, Gamers.fr, Gamepro, GamerZona, Jeuxvideomagazine.com, Key4biz, Latinos Post, XBLA Fans, Xbox One Daily, Design & Trend

(Image of E3 via Xbox Wire)