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The Daily Journal
Written by Andrew Harmon
December 18, 2006

Games Site Returns to Owner After Porn Detour

Santa Monica based board games company Morning Star Games, whose Web site address was besieged earlier this month by a porn entrepreneur and alleged cyber squatter, is once again the rightful owner of its Internet domain.

The toy manufacturer’s Web domain name had expired and was auctioned off to pornographer John Padonack earlier this month, unknown to the company’s bewildered founder and president, filmmaker Allen Wolf.

Morning Star Games had filed a lawsuit against Padonack Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles, alleging trademark infringement and bad faith in registering the domain address.

On Thursday, The Web domain registration service Register.com sent a brief
e-mail to Wolf, informing him that it had voided the sale of morningstargames.com to Padonack but did not offer any further explanation. Calls to Register.com for comment were not immediately returned.

The game’s company’s attorney, Michael Amir of the Century City based law firm Doll Amir & Eley, said he will not pursue legal action against Padonack, in part because Morning Star Games has regained control of its Web site and online store.

For nearly a week, customers visiting the Morning Star Games Web site to buy “Jabber Jot” or “You’re Pulling My Leg” were rerouted to a slew of pornographic images and paragraphs of crude text.

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