In June, Riot Games won a case against a scam website claiming to offer online support for its smash hit PC game League of Legends. Now, the company has won another dispute that it had filed in early August against the owner of LeagueofLegends.co (missing the ‘m’) which redirected users to a porn site.
Although the case (Case Number: DCO2012-0024) remains active on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) website where it was originally filed, the Whois records for LeagueofLegends.co reflect Riot as the owner of the name. In addition to the change of ownership, the URL resolves to a blank web page, instead of a porn site filled with photos of nude women.
Considering LeagueofLegends.com ranks among the top 1,500 websites in the world, according to Alexa, it’s likely a lot of users entering a typo by forgetting the ‘m’ in .com, found themselves on a porn site, after typing the Colombia dot-co domain.
Right now if you type leagueoflegends.co into Google search, you can still see the hit for the porn site as shown in the screen shot below.
Since details of the ruling haven’t been posted online yet, it’s unknown whether the previous owner Martin Hornak handed over the name before a decision was even issued or if he was ordered to transfer the name.
One thing’s for sure, Riot must be relieved to have control.
However, the company isn’t finished going after owners of domain names with its popular hit video game ‘League of Legends’ in the name.
In late July, the company also filed a complaint over the domain name LeagueofLegendsPorn.com (Case Number: D2012-1516), which has yet to be decided. Unlike the dotco domain that pointed visitors to a graphic porn site, LeagueofLegendsPorn.com has a harmless “Coming Soon” page online. But given that Riot has trademarked the term “League of Legends”, it too will likely end up in Riot’s hands.
UPDATE: The case is now showing up as ‘terminated’, meaning the parties agreed on a settlement before the panel reached a decision.
Talking about this story: Kotaku, Joystiq, The Verge, Techdirt, GameStar, GamePolitics, MeriStation, GameDynamo, VG247, OnlineWelten.com, The Escapist, Kotaku Australia and Polygamia.pl
(Image of Riot Games Dublin Office via riotgames.com)
