Categories
Disputes Featured News WIPO

Take-Two wins dispute for GTAtv.com domain name, GTA.tv case still pending

Take-Two wins dispute for GTAtv.com, GTA.tv case still pending

Video game company Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. won a domain name dispute (Case No. D2013-1434) for grandtheftautovideos.com, gtaextreme.com, gtarevolution.com and gtatv.com.

The decision comes shortly after Rockstar ruled out the possibility for a GTA 5 movie, but hinted at a TV show for the Grand Theft Auto series.

While a GTA TV show is all just rumor and speculation at this point, Take-Two has been filing complaints at related domains.  In August 2013, Take-Two filed a dispute (Case No. DTV2013-0004) against the owner of the domain GTA.tv (WHOIS), however, a decision has yet to be issued.

A panelist with the World Intellectual Property Organization ordered gtatv.com and the other names transferred after finding the names were confusingly similar to Take-Two’s GTA trademarks, that the current owner had no rights or legitimate interests in any of the names, and that the names were registered in bad faith. The names had been listed for sale for prices ranging from $350 for grandtheftautovideos.com to $15,000 for gtatv.com.

All four names: grandtheftautovideos.com (WHOIS), gtaextreme.com (WHOIS), gtarevolution.com (WHOIS) and gtatv.com (WHOIS), are still registered to Domain Asset Holdings, which is operated by domain name pioneer Mike Mann.  Mann made headlines in 2012 after registering 14,962 domains in 24 hours.