A domain name registrant started a popular petition on Change.org targeting a UDRP filed by Disney. Apparently, the operators of a website called Club Penguin Rewritten have come under scrutiny from Disney for using the company’s Club Penguin trademark within its domain name. The UDRP was filed against the ClubPenguinRewritten.pw domain name at the National Arbitration Forum (NAF).
To date, the petition has over 130,500 signatures, and the petition’s goal is to get 150,000 signatures. That is a lot of signatures.
According to the Change.org petition page, here’s what Club Penguin Rewritten does:
“Club Penguin Rewritten is an educational re-creation of Disney’s now defunct online game Club Penguin, it was created by teenagers which are under 18 of age and who wish to learn how to manage a game and be successful in tomorrow’s business.”
Club Penguin Rewritten was created in February of this year. The website uses a .pw domain name, and it seems that the ClubPenguinRewritten.com domain name is a different website. Although Disney has filed UDRP proceedings against other Club Penguin domain names, it looks like the company specifically went after this particular .pw domain name.
In light of the UDRP filing, the website has a message announcing it will be moving to a different, non-branded domain name. “Club Penguin Rewritten was forced to move our original domain from clubpenguinrewritten.pw to cprewritten.net,” it says below the logo.
Unfortunately for those who signed the petition, the UDRP panel ruled against the domain name registrant yesterday. Unless Disney has a change of heart or a lawsuit is filed to prevent the domain name transfer, the domain name will be transferred to Disney.
