Gaijin Entertainment has Served Me with a UDRP Complaint
In May of this year I was served a cease and desist letter from a company named Gaijin Entertainment. They demanded that I turn over this domain, gaijin.com, which I had registered in 1995, to them, a company founded in 2002, based on a claim of “trademark infringement.”
Obviously, I was not going to do that. I have never operated a game development business through this domain or name. Even if I had, there exists seven years of prior art in my name. My attorney, Mike Godwin, sent them a letter stating that I was not going to entertain the idea and that they should retract their claim.
There were no further comments from Gaijin Entertainment and I thought that was the end of it.
On Friday, October 4th, Mike Godwin and I were notified that Gaijin Entertainment had filed a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution (UDRP) claim to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). In it they claim that I am doing damage to their trademark and seek to have the domain name stripped from me and awarded to them due to trademark violation.
I have the word “courage” tattooed on my arm. I am not going to let this happen without a fight.
Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen has agreed to represent me regarding this issue. He has asked opposing counsel to withdraw the UDRP claim.
If they do not, we will seek a declaratory judgment of non-infringement in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, taking the fight to them rather than waiting around.
Among the complaints are some interesting bullet points.
- My domain name, registered on May 22, 1995, “fully incorporates” the “Gaijin” wordmark, which was not registered until October 11, 2011.
- One of the most prominent tags within my blog is “Games” and this apparently confuses people.
- I am apparently not using the word “gaijin” correctly (note that Gaijin Entertainment is not, either, so I’m unsure why this would be a thing). For sake of explanation, I chose the word “gaijin”, meaning “foreigner” or “alien” because at the time I was studying philosophical principles regarding identity and definition – specifically about how things are defined through contrast and opposition, and therefore my own identity, from my perspective, was always and forever going to be “alien” to me (since I cannot see myself except as in opposition).
- Certain blog posts of mine have bad words in them and apparently tarnish other people’s reputations.
- My email address apparently confuses people into thinking I am an employee of their company.
- I am apparently attempting to extort $750,000.00 dollars from them. This comes from a throw-away email exchange I apparently had with one of their employees. I have never had any intention to sell the domain but if someone seriously offered me a million dollars I’d be negligent in not considering the offer. I get offers at least once a month and always for some paltry sum (like $100 dollars). Telling people to throw out a “big number” usually ends the conversations quickly.
- The fact that I show up after them in Google searches means that I am somehow diverting traffic from them.
Below is a pdf of the complaint.
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Kat October 7, 2013 at 11:23 pm
That complaint is… well, I’d like to say unbelievable; it isn’t but it *should* be. Best of luck in delivering justice–or at least in getting them to leave you (and your domain) the hell alone.
Di October 8, 2013 at 1:01 am
Fck them, I hope you will save your domain.
Stupid Snail October 8, 2013 at 1:49 am
In America, the law is how much you can afford it to be the law. Good luck!
Petr October 8, 2013 at 4:27 am
they are hysterical anticonsumer HODOR
since you was before them – go and overtake their domain for teh great justice
UDRP POLICE October 8, 2013 at 4:35 am
This is clearly a case of Reverse Domain Name High-jacking as how could the Respondent have been aware of the Complainant’s then non-existent right? Without any evidence to suggest that the Respondent should have been aware of the Complainant’s rights prior to the date of the trademark registration it is almost impossible to assert that the domain name was registered in bad faith, a fundamental requirement of any UDRP complaint. The Complainant’s counsel should know this and therefore this is an abuse of the UDRP policy.
JC October 8, 2013 at 4:53 am
Best of luck!
Dan T. October 8, 2013 at 5:03 am
It should be a slam-dunk win for you, despite the general pro-trademark, anti-domain-owner stance of UDRP panels, since my reading of earlier UDRP decisions shows that complainants can almost never prevail over facts that include the registration and use of a domain by its current owner prior to the existence of the company it’s allegedly infringing against. You’ll probably win a “Reverse Domain Hijacking” decision, which don’t happen very often.
Badri October 8, 2013 at 5:41 am
You fight those bastards with everything you got! I have always liked them as a company but this is just ridiculous. At the VERY least they should offer you a decent sum(hell they can miss it) for the domain. Going on your article they never did, and just started right off trying to pry the domain from your hands without giving fuckall in return.
I dont foresee them winning the litigation, but if they come close im pretty sure they can expect a plethora of ddos attacks.
Brad Patrick October 8, 2013 at 6:28 am
Crush them like a grape. With Mike and Paul advising you, victory will be sweet indeed.
Raidur October 8, 2013 at 7:07 am
Interesting how I, an avid gamer, have never heard of the complaintant until just now. Admittedly, I’d never heard of your website either.
I still find this lawsuit laughably stupid though.
Amaya October 10, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Good for you for standing up for yourself. Good luck!
Dogs > cats > Jonny October 16, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Haha, love you m8! Gaijin is robbing and screwing us paying customers over in “war thunder”, the best flying game i know driven by one of the worst companies :p
Don’t give this away for a penny less than a million $ !! Love from Sweden :D
mack October 20, 2013 at 11:13 pm
Hey m8, I think you will have more readers from both Warthunder and World of tanks gamers since the topic is showin up on their forums. Anyway, it puzzles me that the law gone this strange path that you have to prove others that you are not idiot – i don’t know if this phrase translate exactly in english but its common phrase in polish. Greetings form Poland and keep a good fight.
Pedro December 2, 2013 at 1:40 pm
Hey dude, I was reading your stuff.
Check the following link:
http://www.out-law.com/page-5700
This same case happened already when Prince Sports tried to bully the owner of Prince.com for getting it for FREE. Check it out and you may use Prince’s case to win over your domain!
Anthony December 4, 2013 at 8:25 pm
I am a customer of Gaijin Entertainment, but i find their behavior to be less than honorable …..
I sincerely hope that you do not end up in a bad situation because of corporate (Gaijin Entertainment’s) greed.
Greetings from france and best of luck to you if you face them in court.
taco December 23, 2013 at 7:44 am
Well, I’ll never be doing business with Gaijin Entertainment ever again… I find it irresponsible to continue supporting a greedy Russian FTP developer when they attack a fellow country men… Good job standing strong! Much respect.
Steven December 23, 2013 at 9:09 pm
Hello, I’ve actually come here searching for the game, but after reading this post, I feel bad for you. I’ve tried to post on their forums regarding your plight, but my topic got removed. They (a Russian company) are wrong to wrongly take away this wonderful website.
Dave December 24, 2013 at 11:27 pm
Don’t worry, they’ll be bankrupt soon. They’ve isolated virtually the entire player-base of War Thunder.
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Eric Bigl December 28, 2013 at 1:27 pm
Oh dear. GO on and show them sons of b***** how the law protects the good people. DONT TRUST GAIJIN ENTERTAINMENT !!! They are russian motherf***** that think they can do whatever they want to! With last patch they increased prices about 800% to get as much money as possible… they are dickheads. I was a player of their game the promise stuff and then the cheat and lie behind your back and fuck you over! DO NOT TRUST THEM !!!! I srly hope they be bankrupt soon!
But srly no judge with any brain would them allow to do so! So they will walk away with a loss! Pls keep us infromaed about this ! Im goin ingame warthunder now and spam the ingamehchat with a link to his site :-) HAHAHA
domain guy January 5, 2014 at 5:36 pm
ICAAN recently allowed the creation of .PW domain names for this reason. Anyone can claim copyright ownership of a .PW but not a .com so don’t worry too much about this company’s disgraceful scare tactics. They can always change their own name and I’d send them a cease and disist sending cease and disist letter or a photocopy of your middle finger.
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WT player June 6, 2014 at 1:46 am
Don’t even worry about it, they’re just russians acting russian.
TTa June 9, 2014 at 6:26 pm
i’d say you to stop being racist, but living here – it is more right to not consider myself as one. ever
Dogs>cats>Jonny June 13, 2014 at 9:55 am
That is not a “racist” thing to say -_-
He was talking about one of the stereotype of a russki, not a word for or against any race.
tta June 15, 2014 at 12:03 am
yeah? and stereotype goes: “jews eat children”
so this totally not racism?
stereotypes are one of the form of racism
Dogs>cats>Jonny June 17, 2014 at 5:31 am
Umm… I seriously don’t know where you get YOUR stereotypes from, but please, do NOT, I repeat; do NOT go to a stand up comedy show, you will be offended as hell. Please don’t try to be all that PC, that is just hypocrisy at it’s finest.
tta June 17, 2014 at 6:09 am
are you WASP?
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MK January 17, 2017 at 6:44 am
Gaijin is a bunch of a*sholes anyway.
Good job keeping this domain!