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Lew Rockwell: Ron Paul Not Using the State or UN to Control RonPaul.Com
New submitter sbulut77 writes with a follow up to accusations Ron Paul is using the UN to gain control of ronpaul.com. "Lew Rockwell explains the RonPaul.com issue. There is so much misinformation on this topic, his blog is very welcome. His blog entry is pretty short and well-written please read the blog post directly."
From the article: "Ron is not calling on the UN. ICANN has four approved arbitration organizations. Because the RP.com guys registered Ron's name in Australia, the international arbitration option must be used. Yes, it is associated with the UN. Too bad, but one must play the cards one is dealt. The UN itself is not involved, though note — whatever else is wrong with it — the UN is not a State."
He isn't trying to change legislation to get ownership of the domain. You can't call someone a hypocrite for following the same rules everyone else is currently following. This is a typical straw man argument against a libertarian minded politician. Create some questionable libertarian standard and then say that they aren't following it.
I'm not an expert in intelectual property law but I he might have a good case and he would be a fool not to at least try to get ownership of RonPaul.com. This isn't a case of some other guy named Ron Paul who had the site first. This is a case of individuals making money from a website dedicated to Ron Paul and in my layman's opinion it isn't totally absurd to question if Ron Paul himself has any legal advantage in this situation.
You sound like one of those people who cannot grasp and handle (the admittedly imperfect) reality.
He was offered (a) an option to buy the site, for, given that it's a political site, quite a reasonable sum (and anyway, free market, who cares if it's reasonable, if it isn't, it doesn't sell!) and (b) the option to have free use of the site/domain as long as it remained in control of the original owners.
He was offered the same options he get in the free market (possibly better than the free market, since then they wouldn't necessarily have the threat of interference), yet he uses the option that he wouldn't have in the free market, that he's always rallying against. I'd say the GP has this pretty spot on.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Ron Paul is in the wrong here for a number of reasons.
A) He should have not let that domain expire in the first place. The way I see it, he decided not to renew those domains, some supporters registered it and started a website promoting his campaign.
B) He failed to even ASK the guys for their domain name until after they'd built up a huge community.
C) The guys owning Ronpaul.com/Ronpaul.org even offered to just give him ronpaul.org. The next thing you know, he just hits them with a UN letter.
This is really a dick move by Ron Paul (and I say this as a proud Anarcho-Capitalist/Libertarian and a supporter of his presidential campaigns).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
As a Ron Paul supporter until after the republican primaries (since he wasn't on the Presidential ballot), this pisses me off. He has betrayed his own support base.
Ron Paul is swimming in all sorts of irony. He's a Republican because he's a pragmatist and it's easier to get elected Republican than Libertarian, even though it's an ideological betrayal. And yet at the same time, the Republicans are failing all over the place, because they won't be pragmatists and won't betray their ideology.
That's a violation of ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. Offering to sell a domain matching a trademark to the trademark holder is evidence of bad faith registration (section 4b(i)), and grounds for awarding the domain to the trademark holder. If Ron Paul had offered to buy it and stated an amount, they would have been fine. If they'd told him to piss off and given him the finger they would've been fine. But they really screwed the pooch by stating on their own that they'd sell it to him for $250,000. There's a good chance they're going to lose the domain to him.
Remember this if you own a domain that someone else wants to buy. Never ask for an amount. Even if they say they're interested in buying and how much would you want for it, don't state an amount. Let them come to you with an amount first, then you can negotiate. If you're the first one to state the amount, they can nail you with section 4b(i). The guy who owns nissan.com (he sells computers and Nissan is his last name) almost lost it because Nissan (the car company) kept bugging him to sell. And out of exasperation one day he told them (in Dr. Evil fashion), "$1 million dollars. How many times do I have to tell you, I'm not going to sell it."
Contrary to all the knee-jerk criticism heaped upon him by anti-liberterians who've probably never heard of ICANN or the UDNDRP, Ron Paul is doing the right thing here - working within the rules of ICANN to get the dispute resolved.
Reality-check-trivia time: who holds the trademark for "Ron Paul" in the United States?
Answer: nobody right now, let alone the politician Ron Paul (source: US Patent & Trademark Office online trademark search system). The trademark argument doesn't apply here; and remember, Ron Paul has already tried and failed to make bogus "common-law" trademark claims against YouTube and Twitter users who were critical of him and had all, part, or some variation of "Ron Paul" in their usernames.
Ron Paul wanted to get rid of the Department of Education, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and the US Federal Reserve—to scratch the surface. If he had his way, the UN and by extension the WIPO wouldn't exist either, and he would have to play by the rules being set down by the current (and legitimate) owners of the domain name. He's using an arm of an organization he hates to circumvent the very system he wanted to force on everyone. I have zero sympathy for him, and hope whoever at the WIPO records his complaint puts it at the bottom of a very tall stack of incoming work and takes a comfortable vacation with his or her family, before telling Mr. Paul that his claims are—once again—bogus.