MGM Goes Following WarGames.com

“Popesquatter” in fight with MGM Studios.

I was reading an article today from the International Herald Tribune regarding a fight between MGM studios and the owner of the domain WarGames.com. “War Games” is a generic name that also happens to be the name of a 1983 movie starring Matthew Broderick.

But something in the article caught my eye. The owner of WarGames.com is one Rogers Cadenhead. Name ring a bell? It did for me, so I searched the archives of Reglike and remembered why the name was familiar. Cadenhead was the guy who registered BenedictXVI.com prior to the fresh pope being named last year. Cadenhead gained notoriety as a so-called “Popesquatter” and ultimately donated the domain name to charity.

So why is MGM Studios filing for arbitration over the WarGames.com domain name now? Probably since MGM is getting ready to release WarGames 2 in 2007, as stated by Cadenhead’s blog.

As stated by the International Herald Tribune article, Cadenhead agreed to turn over a number of domains related to MGM’s Rocky franchise to the firm but isn’t handing over WarGames.com. Although I agree that MGM Studios is overstepping its bounds on WarGames.com, the Rocky domains may come back to haunt Cadenhead.

Rather than go following Cadenhead, MGM’s lawyers ought to have spent a few minutes registering other domains for the movie. Say, WarGames2.com and WarGamesMovie.com.

Oops, it’s too late.