Ron Paul wants to expropriate RonPaul.com from his supporters without compensation

From RonPaul.com:

Earlier today, Ron Paul filed an international UDRP complaint against RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org with WIPO, a global governing body that is an agency of the United Nations. The complaint calls on the agency to expropriate the two domain names from his supporters without compensation and hand them over to Ron Paul.
On May 1st, 2008 we launched a grassroots website at RonPaul.com that became one of the most popular resources dedicated exclusively to Ron Paul and his ideas. Like thousands of fellow Ron Paul supporters, we put our lives on hold and invested 5 years of hard work into Ron Paul, RonPaul.com and Ron Paul 2012. Looking back, we are very happy with what we were able to achieve with unlimited enthusiasm and limited financial resources...
...At the same time we offered him RonPaul.org as a free gift so we could keep using RonPaul.com and he wouldn’t have to use something like RonPaulsHomePage.com.
Incredibly, Ron Paul’s lawyers are trying to use our FREE offer of RonPaul.org against us in an attempt to demonstrate “bad faith” on our part!

Of course, they also offered to sell him the .com domain and their mailing list for $250k.

Ron Paul Calls on United Nations to Confiscate Domain Names of His Supporters (Thanks, Redjade!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Kevin Loverde

How’s that free market working for ya?
- Hegelian
  
  Yeah, it seems to me that as a Libertarian Ron Paul should be estopped from trying to use the government to take away someone else’s private “property.” Not their fault RP didn’t think to register the orgs. (Not that I necessarily think they are in the right, either.)
  - margaretpoa
    
    Yeah. I want to catcall both sides of this dust-up.
    - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
      
      Domain names are a really weird form of ‘property’. If anything, they are sort of the weirdo bastard child of ‘intellectual property’ and fiat currency.
      The fiat currency bit comes in because absolutely nothing except convention gives them any real value. On a technical level, there is absolutely nothing requiring DNS to be globally hierarchical, or for a given domain name to resolve in the same way everywhere(indeed, it is pretty trivial to have your local DNS server do whatever you want, and actually quite common for internal purposes in networks of any reasonable size). There was, in fact, a brief fad in the dot com boom era for various ‘alternate root’ peddlers who tried to convince enough users to point to their DNS roots that they could sell all sorts of oddball TLDs that ICANN was just too square to issue. None of them panned out. In practice, a domain name is only worth the paper it isn’t printed on if ICANN agrees that it is(there could be a ‘free market’ in DNS roots, where customers choose the one that offers them the best DNS service; but all but the most pathetic vestiges of that collapsed under their own weight into the present more-or-less-benevolent-when-not-bumbling monopoly).
      
      The ‘IP’ bit comes in because, unlike paper dollars, each ICANN-blessed domain name is unique, and some are a lot more valuable than others, mostly for reasons that fall under the remit of trademark law.
      
      It’s like watching two ardent gold-standard adherents fighting over a $20 ‘federal reserve note’.
    - Scott Slemmons
      
      (waves flag reading “GO, INJURIES!”)
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  How’s that free market working for ya?
  
  I think that the more hilarious part is that Mister States’ Rights is trying to use the United Nations to do his dirty work. If the federal government is bad, shouldn’t the Big Scary World Government be worse?
  - edgore
    
    Well, isn’t dirty work the only thing that the U.N. is good for? /s
  - http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch
    
    UDRP stands for “uniform dispute resolution policy” and it is a guideline for how to handle DNS disputes. http://www.icann.org/en/about/learning/faqs
    There are different UDRP service providers (mostly regionally specialized). The WIPO is a big UDRP service provider, that it’s part of the U.N. is a technicality.
    
    For instance, if Cory where to complain if I went and registered cory-doctorow.com , he would most likely file his complaint with the WIPO because it’s the biggest UDRP provider for his locality (the US and the UK).
    - http://mychemicaljourney.blogspot.com The Chemist
      
      that it’s part of the U.N. is a technicality
      
      No, It is fucking NOT a technicality. Every time someone wants to swipe at the UN, they deliberately ignore all of the organizations within the UN that are purely technocratic and immensely useful in nature. Planes and passports have set standards worldwide in part because of ICAO. You don’t have to buy multiple postage stamps for different countries when mailing overseas because of the UPU. For all of the UNs “uselessness” because it has failed at attaining world fucking peace, it’s been plenty useful for other things.
      - http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch
        
        It’s a technicality because it could be as well any other of the myriad of smaller UDRP providers. The UDRP service of the WIPO is a purely commercial endevour offered by any of an array of other service providers as well. It just happens to be the biggest UDRP provider, I thought I made that ambundantly clear.
      - wysinwyg
        
        You did, but your analysis ignored the point that Ron Paul regularly takes swipes at the UN without acknowledging the useful shit they do. Now he is taking advantage of the useful shit they do. Whether or not it is a technicality it is still hypocritical on Paul’s part.
      - C W
        
        Ron Paul believes the UN has no authority on his property.
        
        Ron Paul wants the authority to recognize his property.
        
        There is a disparity here.
  - http://profiles.google.com/churba Churba S
    
    Not just Mr State’s Rights – Mr States Rights that at the least hates the UN with a passion, and has been demanding that the US stops recognizing them and expels/bans them from US soil.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Shane-Simmons/100000053744641 Shane Simmons
    
    *checks replies to Antinous*
    
    Yep, the Paulites are making excuses already. ”It’s just the procedure you have to go through!” Yeah, and allegedly they’d offered to give him the domain if they could continue the website, and offered to sell him the domain.
    
    I suppose they could have lied about those two things, but it would be a little weird for them to take a “f**k you, old man!” attitude while running an adoration website for the same man.
- http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd
  
  What does this have to do with the free market?
  
  It is high hypocrisy on RP’s end, but it simply implies that we should hold values over personalities.
  
  Personal Property > Ron Paul
Gilbert Wham

Wait, what? Libertarians acting like selfish assholes? I am shocked! Shocked I say!
- septimar
  
  Pretty sure most selfish assholes are either Conservatives or Liberals. But sure, give in to your tribalistic urges.
  - Gilbert Wham
    
    By no means are other political stripes excluded from such a judgement, far from it; but the reason ‘most’ selfish assholes aren’t libertarians is there aren’t that many of them. Just by-the-bye, it’s not ‘tribalistic urges’ upon which I base said value judgement, it’s more the selfish things they say that make them look like assholes.
  - Navin_Johnson
    
    Seeing as Libertarianism at its creation and at its core is nothing but a lobbying tool of big business masquerading as a “philosophy”, I’d just say that they’re the elite’s useful idiots. The racism and pot smoking are just the perks to lure them in….
    - septimar
      
      Most Big Business profits from its cozy relationship with government. Many corporations wouldn’t survive without subsidies.
      Racism? Libertarianism is for unlimited immigration. One of the most frequent targets for criticism on the blog Hit&Run of the leading libertarian magazine Reason is Joe Arpaio, the racist Arizonan sheriff, and birthers are regularly mocked there.
      I’d be glad if you could give up a few of your prejudices.
      - Navin_Johnson
        
        Yes, I’m “reverse racist” of what is essentially at its core a movement littered with neoconfederate racist scum like (white power darling) Ron Paul….a lobbyist created movement that believes that people should be free to decide if they want to serve blacks or not…..a sham movement more obsessed with “states rights” than an antebellum slave holder.
      - septimar
        
        You know what, if you don’t want to listen to people explaining to you how libertarians protest against racism or how the confederation was in no way libertarian or that Ron Paul is not even a typical libertarian, more like an Old Right conservative, or that anti-discrimination laws are opposed by libertarians and conservatives of color because they are degrading or that if you oppose state rights you are supporting the war on drugs, in short if you don’t want to understand an ideology you so vehemently but blindly oppose, maybe you should just write your blog instead of using comments, since you are clearly not interested in any dialogue.
  - wysinwyg
    
    Most numerically. Proportionally I’d still bet on libertarians.
    - septimar
      
      Prove it.
  - C W
    
    Yes, those Dummycrats and Republicants are such smug tribalist pricks, not like ~us~ Libertarians…
    - septimar
      
      Everyone has tribalistic urges. One should strive to overcome them.
- GawainLavers
  
  No, even worse:
  
  At the same time we offered him RonPaul.org as a free gift…
  
  What, free? Are they a bunch of fucking socialists? Haven’t they even read “Atlas Shrugged”?
  - Navin_Johnson
    
    Ron Paul should be praising their success at snapping up a valuable domain, instead he’s engaging in “the bitter politics of envy”.
elix

I don’t know how current it is, but it was my understanding during the mid-2000s when owning domains became something consumers actually started to do, the trick with domain squatting something really obvious (like ronpaul.com when you are not directly partnered with or run by Mr. Paul) was not to give an asking price, but instead simply accept/reject offers. The logic being that asking for a price, if it was deemed unacceptably high, was essentially holding the domain for ransom because you registered it first, and that then forms the basis for a UDRP complaint to take the domain from you.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  They didn’t squat it though, they used the hell out of it for legitimate gain, selling crap that crap could wear to demonstrate their support for crap in craps effort to crap on the rest of us.
  
  Ron Paul is in the public domain, you can do anything you want with him. He agreed to that.
  - http://profiles.google.com/churba Churba S
    
    Not just used the hell out of it – Used the hell out of it with the assistance and tacit approval of Ron Paul and the Ron Paul campaigns from 2008 till about a week ago.
  - elix
    
    Oh, granted. I wasn’t trying to imply that the domain holders were not acting in good faith. I’m just saying that setting a definite and large asking price has been used to establish bad faith in UDRP complaints.
    
    See margaretpoa’s comment below for a more applicable object lesson than “don’t act like domain squatters”.
margaretpoa

So, Ron Paul supporters are finding out that despite their fantasies of him, he’s just another greedy fat cat who will stand on the necks of better but less powerful people to gain whatever it is he wants and that he’ll be a giant hypocrite to do it if he has to. Welcome to Realityland, Paulbots.
- http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd
  
  I have supported Ron Paul because of his bravy and well articulated anti-war, pro-civil liberties, and limited government views.
  
  Even having these, he is not perfect. Nobody is. Even if he were a child molester, he would still be a hero for speaking against George Bush’s drive to war when few others on either side of the aisle did.
  - Stan Brooks
    
    He is not for limited government. He is for limited federal government. He has no issue with state and local governments pass whatever invasive laws they feel like.
  - Navin_Johnson
    
    pro-civil liberties
    
    He’s pro liberty in the same way that antebellum America was “Pro-liberty”: For landed white gentry.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Shane-Simmons/100000053744641 Shane Simmons
  
  Holy crap, you mean he’s just another politician, like several of us have been saying for years?
jimdigritz

BS. Denninger nails this – and he is no fan of RP.

“They registered this guy’s name and started selling merchandise, which had exactly zero value except in conjunction with his name.

Then they tried to sell him the domain and their mailing list which they compiled using his name and likeness without his consent for $250,000.

But now that Ron Paul has instead filed a complaint with WIPO, they’re all screaming foul! and claiming that as a Libertarian “trademarks” cannot exist.

The simple reality is that the value of their “product”, such as it is, would be exactly zero were it not for Ron Paul himself. It is his visage, his record (such as it is) and his name that have acquired secondary meaning.

That is the definition of a strong trademark — something that has acquired secondary meaning but would otherwise be nondescript.

You don’t own this folks — Ron Paul does.

And despite not being one of his fans in this regard he is exactly correct.”
- Dv Revolutionary
  
  Politicians do not have a copyright nor a trademark in their name and likeness for commercial purposes. The law says they don’t. Please do not ascribe such a right.
  
  You and I are free to make as many Barack Obama collectable dinner plates or gold plated Mitt Romney headed pez shaped stock tickers as we want and sell them to anyone willing to buy them. It is not illegal and it should not prejudice any domain dispute we have one way or another.
  - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
    
    Actually, the ‘pez shaped’ bit might get you into some trouble…
    - Dv Revolutionary
      
      You are right we will scrap that and sell the life size John Edwards adult novelty doll with real hair and sculpted buttocks. Valentine’s day is around the corner.
  - http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
    
    I find it funny come halloween and the stores are selling masks like “MR POLITICIAN” or “MR PRESIDENT” like they’re trying to get away with copyright infringement that doesn’t exist.
  - Drew_Gehringer
    
    Relevant: The ‘Head O State’ dildo
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kbqqIBmeFg
- retchdog
  
  ron paul is neither a product nor a service, despite appearing to be a tool, so trademark doesn’t apply.
  
  denninger (whoever that is) should consider a career in government. his ability to invent spurious arguments in favor of state interference seems formidable. john yoo would be impressed.
- http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd
  
  On the other hand, the value of Ron Paul would be nothing without his grass roots supporters.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  They saw a market niche and filled it. Shame he’s so bitterly jealous of their success. Some are makers, and some are takers…
Byte Master

If you didn’t register the domains in bad faith, and have a legitimate interest in them, you keep your domains, **AS LONG AS YOU SEND A RESPONSE **
PhosPhorious

Ron Paul goes crying to the UN.

Hi. Larious.
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  You’d probably get fired for it; but wouldn’t it be entertaining to be the WIPO functionary who gets handed that filing by the intake system and has the chance to pen a ‘Dear Dr. Paul, I’m afraid that, as you have so cogently and eloquently stated on numerous occasions the UN has no constitutional authority over the US or its citizens and we must consider your request beyond our remit.’ letter?
Xof

There is no butt-hurt like Libertarian butt-hurt.
- C W
  
  On that note, after the first two movies were huge money-losing bombs, they’re making a third Atlas Shrugged! Whoooooo.
  - Selena60
    
    People couldn’t even be bothered to download a torrent of the movie. It wasn’t worth the bandwidth.
    - Drew_Gehringer
      
      I downloaded it.
      
      Kinda pretty, but boring.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Maybe they should make it with Steve-O and call it Atlas Farted. It would almost certainly earn more money.
    - Drew_Gehringer
      
      I prefer ‘the world shrugged back’, a look at how the world carries on just fine with the ‘TITANS OF INDUSTRY’ off in their own little world.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      ”Sharted” rather. If you’re going to do it, go all the way.
    - Lupus_Yonderboy
      
      Personally I’ve been looking for a “Telemachus Sneezed” movie for years.
  - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
    
    They make a different kind of bank, showing those movies at conferences for people who already drank the kool-aid.
- septimar
  
  Yeah, when Bush was reelected Liberals took it *so* well.
  - Xof
    
    Freak-outs and butt-hurt are fundamentally different things. Must we explain all Internet traditions?
  - Navin_Johnson
    
    ”elected”……
  - wysinwyg
    
    How’d you feel about it you brave libertarian, you?
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      Funny how libertarians should in principle hate George Bush just as much, but rarely do….
      - wysinwyg
        
        More. Pretty much all of W’s policies were statist and supposedly we liberals love that centralization of political power shit.
        
        Never mind that liberal activists spend a hell of a lot of their time protesting centralization of political power.
      - septimar
        
        And because Bush was statist, pretty much all libertarians hate him.
      - septimar
        
        Jesus, if you had actually read libertarian blogs when Bush was president, you’d know he was criticized constantly, for the war, for the expansion of government, for his lack of respect for personal liberties…
      - Navin_Johnson
        
        That explains the total absence of Libertarians and Pault__ds from any war protests……
      - Navin_Johnson
        
        All those libertarians and Paul-t__ds who supposedly hate war and deficits so much were notably absent from any of the massive Iraq war protests. They did seem to show up once the nativist “Tea Party” were conjured up by big business interests.
    - septimar
      
      Bush was a disgrace.
- Gilbert Wham
  
  It is a rich and heady schadenfreude, is it not? Fine and full-flavoured…
- http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd
  
  Most butt-hurt is pretty much the same. Neither liberals or conservatives are anywhere near immune.
Snig

People worshiping at a cult of personality should use the former postage stamp rule: only honor the dead ones. Real live humans can let you down.
MB44

Initiate Sunday Ron Paul Circlejerk. Beep boop bop bop…
- C W
  
  It must be Sunday, the NWO is forcing MB44′s imaginary children to be injected with autism and fluoride and hurting his fee-fees.
dragonfrog

Incredibly, Ron Paul’s lawyers are trying to use our FREE offer of RonPaul.org against us in an attempt to demonstrate “bad faith” on our part!

Well I should blasted well think it’s a sign of bad faith – as if any libertarian of good faith would use a TLD reserved for non-profit organizations.
- C W
  
  “as if any libertarian of good faith would use a TLD reserved for non-profit organizations.”
  
  Parasites, the lot!
niro5

It seems to me we should just let the free market figure this out.
Wingnut

Maybe all parents should register their children’s names as domain names at birth.
I noticed that someone is squatting on Corydoctorow.com. What if some person or group, say like the Westboro Baptist Church, were to buy that name to redirect to their website (Godhatesfags.com)? Messiness ensues.
fuzzyfuzzyfungus

If this doesn’t end with UN NWO/ZOG gas mask mooks rappelling from black helicopters to herd the lot of them into the FEMA camps and hand the disputed domain name to some cryptic plenary committee, I will be disappointed.
http://hybnost.com/ Vikas Paul

Groupon in India was in similar position couple of years back resulting in delayed launch.
Why Groupon is late in India and who delayed it ?
http://hybnost.com/index.php/why-groupon-is-late-in-india-and-who-delayed-it/#sthash.wLTPRfjU.dpbs
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I thought that Groupon is delayed because it’s turned out to be a clusterfuck for businesses who try to use it.
  - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
    
    Heh yeah I’m glad it turned out that way.
    
    I appreciate that people want to “save” money.
    
    But the last sort of customer I want is the sort who was drawn to me to get what I have for less than what I value it at.
    - chenille
      
      Isn’t that the point of offering group rates, though? It means you are willing to sell to customers who would to pay less, but only if you know there’s enough to make it worthwhile. A tool to give you those numbers doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Until you offer something at a loss or break-even and you get more orders in one day than you can process in five years. It’s a bankruptcy machine.
      - Snig
        
        And you have new customers who view your view your value as half of what you normally sell it for.
      - http://twitter.com/sfrazer Scott Frazer
        
        “We’re losing money on every sale, but we’re making it up in volume!”
        
        Groupon won’t sign you up unless you discount your wares at least 50% (I think), then they take half of the gross (I know this one). Unless your margins were HUGE to start with, everyone doing a groupon is losing money. They may be able to write it off as a marketing expense, but honestly they’d probably be better off buying an old fashioned TV ad.
  - http://hybnost.com/ Vikas Paul
    
    hi,
    Let me clarify myself I am talking about Groupon entry into India. You may read the link thati gave in my earlier comment
    Anyways – Their late entry benefited Snap-deal very much.
  - Navin_Johnson
    
    There needs to be a button that will destroy all Yelp reviews with the word “Groupon” in them.
wunder

@jimdigritz:disqus (and others)
The crux of this isn’t about domain disputes nor the entirety of Ron Paul’s beliefs nor politicians in general – it’s about one specific belief of Paul’s:

The UN has no authority to make “laws” that bind American citizens, because it does not derive its powers from the consent of the American people.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul82.html

The issue is that after having spent over 3 decades arguing that the UN has oversight over American affairs, Paul is now invoking it in a personal matter. Moreover, he hasn’t even bothered to engage in any domestic resolution mechanisms (e.g., bringing a suit in a US court).

Regardless of Paul being right legally or morally, this move smacks of hypocrisy – and that’s why this is noteworthy.

Also, for a slightly broader write-up see http://gawker.com/5983066/ron-paul-calls-on-united-nations-which-he-doesnt-believe-in-to-confiscate-ronpaulcom
- Robert Johnson
  
  Certainly sounds dramatic. However.
  As Bryce Steinhoff got into this yesterday:
  
  [clip]
  There’s a lot of misinformation about this being spread around. Here’s the deal:
  
  The UN has no authority to strip a domain name from its owner. Ron Paul certainly knows this and that is not what any of this is about. I repeat, none of this is about the UN or their authority.
  
  When anybody registers a domain name, they voluntarily agree to an ICANN policy called the Uniform Domain-name Dispute-resolution Policy, or UDRP. ICANN authorizes *several* entities to handle arbitration when a third party submits a claim based on the UDRP policy which the domain registrant voluntarily agreed to. In this case Ron Paul’s lawyers choose WIPO, a UN agency. Certain criteria such as trademark rights and “bad faith” are outlined in the UDRP for evaluation by the arbiter, which are the things that Ron Paul’s lawyers mention in their UDRP complaint.
  
  In the case of RonPaul.com and .org, the registrants and registrars are outside the US (this is not necessarily the people who run the sites). Because of this, it is logical that Ron Paul’s lawyers opted to use the UN-connected WIPO agency to do the arbitration. It is *incidentally* connected to the UN; it doesn’t have anything to do with UN “authority”.
  
  You don’t have to agree with Ron Paul on this as Jack pointed out, but don’t cry NAP abuse when a provision of this voluntary contract is exercised. The arbitration can even be overturned by the courts if necessary, but that’s unlikely.
  Yesterday at 6:32pm
  
  https://www.facebook.com/jack.hunter.397/posts/298778630248015
  - Xof
    
    When anybody registers a domain name, they voluntarily agree to an ICANN policy called the Uniform Domain-name Dispute-resolution Policy, or UDRP.
    
    So, I can register a domain and not agree to this arbitration clause?
    
    No?
    
    Then I believe the term “voluntarily” is misapplied here.
    - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
      
      It’s the ‘root hog, or die’ theory of consent. All the rage in such circles.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  The door is evil. Until I want to go through it.
http://excelsior-station.wikidot.com Sarge Misfit

Is there a support group for those like Ron Paul who engage in self-inflicted reputational suicide?
- http://excelsior-station.wikidot.com Sarge Misfit
  
  Oh, wait, that’s the GOP, isn’t it?
  - http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd
    
    Who in the GOP likes Ron Paul? They wouldn’t even let him in the convention in 2008, and in 2012 would only let him speak if he didn’t touch on foreign policy.
    
    Republicans, by and large, have a deep seated hatred for the man much more than liberals; he reveals their hypocrisy.
    - Snig
      
      They liked him because he voted with them the vast majority of time. He made token votes against them that mattered only to his fans, nothing that seriously disrupted their agenda. It allowed them to largely subsume his voting block by offering minimal concessions, and as you said, not even a convention appearance. Why wouldn’t they like such an adorable puppet?
ToMajorTom

“…we put our lives on hold and invested 5 years of hard work into Ron Paul…”

Does that translate to: “…wasted 5 years but hoped to get a big-ass cash reward at the end anyway” ?
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  Perhaps they should have considered diversifying their portfolios…
  
  *Adjusts monocle*
- http://twitter.com/ilovegrover Thane_Eichenauer
  
  What would be wrong if they did want compensation?
Meiles02

Wow, that’s sure a sea-change in attitude. Is this really the same guy who said:
“You can call me he. You can call me she. You can call me Regis and Kathy Lee; I don’t care! Just as long as you call me.”

Ohhhh, RON Paul….
xpatriate

I guess the RP time share at the Citadel is out now.
http://www.efemurl.com/ efemurl

interestingly enough….we allow Facebook, Twitter and the rest to expropriate and leverage “Community” created/owned content into billions of dollars in wealth for handful….
http://twitter.com/perizade Perizade

Can I just say I really don’t care who wins in this douche off?
- Gilbert Wham
  
  If they both lose, we all win.
technogeekagain

I hereby nominate Ron Paul for this year’s “Not even wrong” award. (Yeah, I know, there’s most of a year for someone to top it.)
Sean Breakey

To a Libertarian, the most valuable possession they have is their name and their likeness. If they called it RonPaulSupporters.com it would be a completely different idea, but it’s not, it’s explicitely RonPaul.com/.org.

Leaving the internet aside for a second, in no other fashion is it legal to use someone’s name or likeness without their consent, except in the case of reporting on issues of public interest, (RonPaulNews.com?).

This is the first time I’ve heard of Ron Paul suing anyone, and he does it for the sake of his own name, likeness, and reputation.

That sounds exactly like a Libertarian to me.
- Hegelian
  
  Ron Paul **still has his name and likeness.** Nobody has taken that away from him. What Ron Paul doesn’t have is the **domain name** “RonPaul.com”. The two things are not the same thing.
  
  BTW. Citation needed on your claim that “To a Libertarian, the most valuable possession they have is their name and their likeness.”
  - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
    
    What also isn’t clear is how the Mr. John Smiths of the world handle the problem… Do you battle to the death in the marketplace of ideas, with the better-recognized one absorbing the brand of the weaker, like some kind of Highlander thing?
    
    In a bland sort of ‘identity theft is bad, m’kay’ sense, the importance of identity is trivially obvious; but it doesn’t really scale up very well beyond the ‘small city state were people know each other’ level, the human-usable identifiers just aren’t unique(never mind important and constitutionally protected things like satire, parody, commentary, etc.)
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      What also isn’t clear is how the Mr. John Smiths of the world handle the problem…
      
      The John Smith with the most money gets all the rights and privileges. That’s libertarianism in one sentence.
    - Sean Breakey
      
      I like the idea of having a given name and a serial number. Most surnames are relics as it is, either hundreds or thousands of years old.
  - http://profiles.google.com/churba Churba S
    
    “BTW. Citation needed on your claim that “To a Libertarian, the most valuable possession they have is their name and their likeness.”
    
    Sounds a bit more like one of those kooky freemen-on-the-land things, doesn’t it?
    - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
      
      I’m pretty sure that the freemen-on-the-land version is battling it out in a flurry of cryptic paperwork for ‘ronofthefamilypaul.com’ even now… What will get really interesting is when their interest in peculiar orthographic rules collides with the expansion into arbitrary gTLDs and non-latin character sets. Oh boy.
  - http://www.facebook.com/deb.johnson.393 Deb Johnson
    
    Hmmm…. 2 unsuccessful attempts to post my comment below….wonder if it will slide through as a reply?
    
    First I would like to say that any article written by an anonymous author should be read with skepticism. Nuff said!
    
    The argument that Ron Paul’s representatives should not go through the set protocol for handling this matter is like saying he should try to buy his groceries with gold coins… ridiculous for intelligent people to make such claims.
    
    It looks to me like RonPaul.com (a privately held domain) duped a lot of Ron Paul supporters (yes the fine print contains a disclaimer) into purchasing Ron Paul swag through the site. These people probably thought this was directly helping the campaign. I certainly was confused by all of the URL’s with his name …. the reason I never bought any online swag. I have been working in the online industry for years and am aware of people purchasing domain names of famous people in the hopes of making a killing by selling it back to the rightful owner.
    
    In a facebook volley with an advocate of RonPaul.com people (whoever they are), Coca-Cola would not sue him for selling a Coca-Cola sign. That depends! Are you selling a sign that was manufactured by someone who was licensed to print that sign???? Reselling something already licensed is much different that manufacturing something new and selling it to the public.
    
    The name Ron Paul has been made into a Trademark. Do scroll down on this dispute and read the actual complaint (which the current domain owner has been fair to post.) I believe asking originally $848,000 and later dropping the price to $250,000 is nothing but extortion and not free market. Since the site deals exclusively with Ron Paul, his reputation is at stake. If it is sold to a detractor, how will it be used? This “dedicated Ron Paul fan” seems to be, and probably always was, riding the coat tails of Dr. Paul and in it only for the money. Free market advocates do not condone extortion.
    - Hegelian
      
      “dropping the price to $250,000 is nothing but extortion and not free market.
      
      You keep using keep using that word. I do not think it meas what you think it means.
      
      It is not extortion to charge more money than someone wants to pay for a product. That is pure capitalism, and a libertarian has no basis to gripe about it, nor any basis to run to the UN or *any* tribunal to have the name taken from its current owner based on a government granted monopoly.
      
      Read the Techdirt article for something more nuanced than the one-sided story you get from Ron Paul’s Lawyer.
      
      https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130210/01422321932/ron-paul-un-hater-asks-un-to-take-ronpaulcom-forcefully-ron-pauls-biggest-supporters.shtml
      
      The article notes how the Internet Archive snapshot shows from the RonPaul.com sites very inception that it was not officially affiliated with Ron Paul:
      
      Disclaimer
      The RonPaul.com website is maintained by independent grassroots supporters of Ron Paul. Neither this website nor the articles, posts, videos or photos appearing on it are paid for, approved, endorsed or reviewed by Ron Paul or his Campaign. For Ron Paul’s official website, go to RonPaul2008.com
      
      Ron Paul’s case doesn’t pass any tests for trademark issues. There is no likelyhood of confusion because of the disclaimer, and Ron Paul is a politician not a commercial product, and trademarks apply to commerce not to politics.
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  He held public office for many years and any reference to him is related to that or his attempt to gain higher office.
  
  If you think I have to check with Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Ronald Reagan or Sonny Bono to use their name or likeness you are wrong.
  
  So long as I don’t pretend to actually be one of them, unless I feel like it.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    THANKS OBAMA!!!
- http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd
  
  To be fair, the guys who own RonPaul.com now bought it from an unrelated Ron Paul for $25K give years ago. The guy had no idea who Ron Paul was.
  - http://www.facebook.com/deb.johnson.393 Deb Johnson
    
    Sasha, sounds like you have inside information? Can you identify who the anonymous owners are?
    - http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd
      
      This came from the comments thread at the post at RonPaul.com.
      
      http://www.ronpaul.com/2013-02-08/ron-paul-vs-ronpaul-com/comment-page-2/#comments
      
      search for ‘eBay’ on that page.
  - Hegelian
    
    If true then Ron Paul could have done the same thing, but either he didn’t think of it or he didn’t want to pay market price for the domain name so someone else beat him to it.
    
    Seems that Ron Paul is only a Libertarian when it is **convenient** and that he’s all too ready to dump librarian principles when he wants something. I’d say that principles are the things you stick to even when it is hard to do so, so it seems to me that Ron Paul doesn’t have any Libertarian principles. Perhaps they are “more like guidelines”?
dawdler

Talk about eminent domains.

(Baaaaaa-DUMP).
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

http://mnc2013.ca/speakers/

Check this list thoroughly, it is good for a guffaw or ten.

You can even get to teh conference by train, although I warn you it is a socialist train taking government handouts at every stop. Doubtlessly on rails of a superior steel stolen from a mighty god VIA hateful taxation.
bryan rasmussen

I just checked and ron.paul.name is still available. Maybe he should avail himself of it, I would but my name is not Ron Paul.
bolamig

I’d call them “frenemies” rather than “supporters”
http://twitter.com/sirkowski Sirkowski

These libertarians seem mad.
http://voidstar.com/ jbond

Telemacchus Sneezed. All over my keyboard.
http://www.facebook.com/buddhaflow Sasha Shepherd

In counterpoint, a defense of RP’s actions here I hadn’t considered. This is a copy and paste from the comments section at http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/02/ron-paul-feuding-his-fans/61970/

(edit: formatting horrible, deleted. Just follow that link and search on page for ‘Galloping’ for a pretty cogent defense of RP’s actions.)

I think a short defense of RP’s actions can be summed up thusly: even if you are a strict libertarian, if your neighbor breaks your window and refuses to compensate you, you are not a hypocrite for going to the courts – because that is what exists. Libertarians don’t want to get rid of structures like this, but merely make them multi-polar and competitive.
- Hegelian
  
  “I think a short defense of RP’s actions can be summed up thusly: even if you are a strict libertarian, if your neighbor breaks your window and refuses to compensate you, you are not a hypocrite for going to the courts – because that is what exists.”
  
  Nope. That won’t wash. Breaking your window is the destruction of actual property. That is not comparable to Ron Paul demanding an internet domain he wants and invoking the power of government granted monopoly (trademark law) to do it. Nor can his running to a UN organization to do it be countenanced with libertarianism or his positions on the UN.
- C W
  
  “even if you are a strict libertarian”
  
  Sorry, his shtick is being “Dr. No” and trying to get the UN booted from US soil, running to them is not consistent with the image he actively cultivates and his idiot followers regurgitate.
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

I recall a book by Katie Tarbox titled “katie.com” describing her experience escaping from a sexual assault by someone she met on the internet as a teen. Although it made a good title for the book, someone else had already secured that domain name. There was a big scuffle because the owner of katie.com was receiving the kind of hatemail and trolling you’d expect from the internet circa 1999. Seems like they tried to sue Tarbox and/or the publisher. Later editions of the book used a slightly different title.

I’ve always wondered how it shakes out in actual law, but seems like there have been dozens of domains that parody or oppose the person or group whose name they use. Also it’s a little like the way movies & tv still use “555-1234″ phone numbers, on the assumption that any actual number they use will receive thousands of pranks. See the song 867-5309 Jenny. Should domains expect some privacy
- Hegelian
  
  Another issue that comes up is character names in movies. Producers check to make sure there is either nobody by that name or more than one person by that name so they don’t have to pay that person compensation. I’m not sure what the legal basis for doing that is. The right of publicity laws vary by state so it is probably wiser to make sure that nobody can say their exclusive name was appropriated by a movie. The Katie book people should have done a search and registered an appropriate domain before they published the book.
http://neublek.tumblr.com Neublek

Libertarians, LOL
http://www.iandicomputing.com Clifton

It is a great pity that UDRP does not, so far as I know, allow for the application of Uniform Draconian Responsible Parenting technique #12:
“Since you’re both fighting over this, I’m taking it away from both of you and neither of you can have it.”
http://profiles.google.com/spacewatcer Marios P.

wtf is ron paul?
Nick Riley

Ron Paul can use the name to continue a great cause. The guys using the domain right now have nothing to stand on. If they truly wanted Ron Paul’s ideas to get more coverage, they would let Ron Paul use his own name.
- Gilbert Wham
  
  Horseshit. They are not stopping Ron Paul using his name at all. As mentioned above, they bought the domain from another (merely ordinary) Ron Paul, who gladly sold it to them. Obviously, they paid for that as it had some further value for them, making it a good deal. Presumably, Super Special Saint Ron Paul can gain some pecuniary and/or political benefit from said domain. Why, given his espousal of free market principles, should he not be prepared to pay what the market has decided it will bear for said domain name?
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Why, given his espousal of free market principles, should he not be prepared to pay what the market has decided it will bear for said domain name?
    
    Because he’s magic.
http://twitter.com/WikiTruths Wiki-Truths

Way to shit on your supporters…
SomebodySmart

Well, I just registered RONPAUL.MD and RONPAUL.HM last night and I will give them to Ron Paul, M.D. if he wants them. Of course, I haven’t spent the last few years working on those sites.
Snig

Gosh, thanks for filling us in. If only the internet had other individuals telling us information about Ron Paul.
oasisob1

“You instantly brand him a greedy fat cat.”
He is a politician.
C W

“You probably don’t even understand what Ron Paul has stood for
…
But no. You instantly brand him a greedy fat cat.”

I’d say they understand just fine.
fuzzyfuzzyfungus

Socialists don’t need radar: The trajectory of any aircraft is fully determined by the dialectic synthesis of the historical struggle between lift and gravity.
margaretpoa

He used to be my Representative in Congress, genius. I think I know him by now. And yes, he opposed the wars and I support that but that one thing doesn’t make up for the fact that he’s a Randian, racist, homophobe who believes that the unemployed should best die and decrease the surplus population. Get off your soapbox.
http://twitter.com/randki Randy Kiessig

Anytime I run into a politician with a large cult of personality, like Ron Paul, watch out.
anwaya

Only a moocher would go whining to the WIPO.
Gilbert Wham

Are we sure Ron Paul knows what he’s stood for?
anwaya

Who is Ron Paul?
Selena60

Ron Paul running off to WIPO to get the RonPaul.com site as a freebie is akin to his goddess Ayn Rand fraudulently getting Medicare when she needed it. Of course it can be rationalized by the strong seizing from the weak in classic Libertarian style. But for both it strikes me as a self-centered asshole thing to do; which is, of course another mantra of Libertarianism.
fuzzyfuzzyfungus

He’s an OB/GYN. That’s a kind of doctor who deals with problems in how babby is formed.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/RuPaul_by_David_Shankbone_cropped.jpg
C W

Google Ron Paaaaaaaoh fuck.
anwaya

Nothing whatsoever to do with John Galt, then. Amirite?
Gilbert Wham

I use Capitalist Running Dogs to launch all my gliders.
Patrick Elliott-Brennan

Actually you’ve missed out the bourgeois element of wind. It frequently intercedes in the historic struggle, usually on the side of lift but sometimes it has its own aims which can only be understood in terms of self interest.
http://twitter.com/celesteh Les Hutchins

He didn’t write those positions he stood for. His staff wrote them in a newlater that bore his name and which he made a lot of money off of, but forgot existed. He was too busy with editorials about how black men are coming to the suburbs to attack white people.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

At least, Rupaul -should- have more notoriety than Ron Paul.
http://profiles.google.com/churba Churba S

I think that something rather more akin to Ayn Rand and her claiming of Medicare is the fact that Ron Paul does, in fact, claim Social Security.
fuzzyfuzzyfungus

The petit bourgeois headwinds and tailwinds are ultimately irrelevant: gravitation is the universal property of objects with masses to experiences collective class consciousness and no aircraft can externalize the contradiction between needing to exploit the masses to maintain continual lift and the gravitational effects of those masses forever.

In some cases, the petit bourgeois will experience a reactionary headwind tendency, and attempt to oppose the thrust of the capitalist mode of production, in other cases they will incorrectly identify themselves with that thrust and constitute a tailwind; but in neither case can they overcome the greater forces that ultimately constitute the revolutionary synthesis.
http://twitter.com/ilovegrover Thane_Eichenauer

A Randian?!? Oh noes!
Tynam

I love all you people with an intense passion.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shane-Simmons/100000053744641 Shane Simmons

I’ve seen a theory that Lew Rockwell actually wrote that stuff, to chase off the “Republicans who want to smoke pot”.
C W

“I’ve seen a theory that Lew Rockwell actually wrote that stuff, to chase off the “Republicans who want to smoke pot”.”

I find it very likely that Rockwell was the ghost-writer, but with those sincere beliefs/cause. I can’t imagine why he’d be exclusionary to any [white] property-owners, though.
anwaya

And the passengers are imperialist paper tigers, to keep the weight down.