Ron Paul asks UN to strip RonPaul.com domain ownership away from supporters

[leemajors]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/11/3976114/ron-paul-asks-un-to-strip-ronpaul-com-domain-from-supporters


Ron Paul wants ownership of his namesake domain, and he's not willing to pay for the privilege. Instead, the former Congressman and presidential candidate has forged a complaint with the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization asking the agency to grant him ownership of both RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org. "Ron Paul's name and his associated Ron Paul mark have become synonymous with the Complainant and his books, articles, public appearances, and political commentary," reads the complaint. "Ron Paul has no relationship with the Respondents and has not authorized the Respondents to use the Ron Paul name."

Currently both URLs are owned by Paul supporters; RonPaul.com has gained over 100,000 Likes on Facebook since it launched in 2008. The site's operators have offered to give RonPaul.org to the former politician at no cost, but are asking Paul to lay down $250,000 for the more popular .com domain. That price tag would bring with it a mailing list of 170,000 members, according to the site. Considering Paul has bowed out of Washington, however, it's unclear what value such an email list would offer over his existing contact database(s). "We are getting our mailing list appraised right now but we are confident it is easily worth more than $250k all by itself," the site's owners say. "Claims that we tried to sell Ron Paul “his name” for $250k or even $800k are completely untrue."

[Clipper Nation]

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=217311


"From the amusing file comes the following:

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...


... Uh huh.


These folks registered this guy's name and started selling merchandise, which had exactly zero value except in conjunction with his name and fame.


Then they tried to sell him the domain and their mailing list which they compiled using his name and likeness without his consent for a whole ****load of money. $250,000, to be exact. [actually it was originally over $800,000]


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.

[boutons_deux]

"free market" :lol

libertarian against all govt, esp U. fricking N., intervention! :lol

[whitemamba]

Ron Paul is the man, IMHO

[Clipper Nation]

"free market" :lol
Can't have a free market economy (or liberty, for that matter) without protecting property rights, tbh...


libertarian against all govt
Dr. Paul isn't against all government, he's only against bloated, inept, and unconstitutional government...

You fail again :lol

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Example # godknowswhat of Ron Paul supporters demonstrating their douchebaggery to the point where Paul will never get taken seriously.

[Blake]

This is a good one.

I don't see how he wins control of the website though.

[Blake]

Back in 2007 we put our lives on hold for you, Ron, and we invested close to 10,000 hours of tears, sweat and hard work into this site at great personal sacrifice. We helped raise millions of dollars for you, we spread your message of liberty as far and wide as we possibly could, and we went out of our way to defend you against the unjustified attacks by your opponents. Now that your campaigns are over and you no longer need us, you want to take it all away – and send us off to a UN tribunal?

That’s not cool! We want our old pre-retirement Ron Paul back!

http://www.ronpaul.com/

Lol fools.

[Clipper Nation]

Tbh, those guys are some shitty "supporters," making money off Ron without his permission and then trying to put him on blast when he asks them to stop...

[Clipper Nation]

Example # godknowswhat of Ron Paul supporters demonstrating their douchebaggery to the point where Paul will never get taken seriously.
If a few douchebag supporters were enough to make someone unelectable, no politician would ever be elected :lol

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Yeah I'm not disagreeing but people like them and the people who buy Alex Jones water filters make Paul look bad by supporting him.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

If a few douchebag supporters were enough to make someone unelectable, no politician would ever be elected :lol

This is different. When an uninformed (aka average) voter thinks of Ron Paul, he thinks of nutty people who have a 3 year supply of canned food on their basements.

To your point tho, the Tea Party and religious right has gone a long way towards making Republicans unelectable.

[Blake]

Tbh, those guys are some shitty "supporters," making money off Ron without his permission and then trying to put him on blast when he asks them to stop...

If they've raised millions for Paul as they say, I'm not sure how they can be called shitty.

[Clipper Nation]

As a Paul supporter, I've found that the average voter falls into one of two camps with Ron:

1. "Ron Paul is crazy because he (hates Israel/is an isolationist/wants to shut down the government/insert talk radio bullshit here)!"

2. "I like most of Paul's views, except..."

His supporters aren't really an issue for most average voters, it's either the same BS talking points they spew about anyone who isn't "their guy," or one or two specific policies they disagree with, tbh....

I will admit that the food-hoarding prepper conspiracy crowd are a bunch of annoying douchebags, but most neocons attract those kinds of losers, too... only a small minority of RP supporters are like that, though, most tend to be young, normal, politically active, and informed voters, tbh....

[ChumpDumper]

Who owns the domain name irony.com?

[Blake]

I looked for whatever reason.


Irony.com is for sale.

http://www.irony.com/

[ChumpDumper]

:lol probably the same guys.

[boutons_deux]

"young, normal, politically active, and informed voters"

:lol

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Is this the same site with the forum posts we were inundated with positing inane bullshit from guys like SA210 and Cosmored during the election?

[DarrinS]

Doesn't it just redirect to infowars.com?

[SnakeBoy]

Tbh, those guys are some shitty "supporters," making money off Ron without his permission and then trying to put him on blast when he asks them to stop...

How are they shitty supporters? They have the rights to the domain names and they are making money off of them like good libertarians should.

[DMC]

Mike Rowe could not have the domain www.mikerowesoft.com" because it was phonetically the same as "microsoft" and he was capitalizing on that phonetic similarity, basically potlicking their fortune. Same is happening here.

[Blake]

Mike Rowe could not have the domain www.mikerowesoft.com" because it was phonetically the same as "microsoft" and he was capitalizing on that phonetic similarity, basically potlicking their fortune. Same is happening here.

This is different than that. Microsoft.com was already around first.

[Nbadan]

Fuck Ron Paul....He didn't build that...

[DMC]

This is different than that. Microsoft.com was already around first.

Ron Paul was around before the website.

[DarrinS]

Fuck Ron Paul....He didn't build that...

I thought you twooftards loved you some Ron Paul?

[Clipper Nation]

How are they shitty supporters? They have the rights to the domain names and they are making money off of them like good libertarians should.
They're making money off his intellectual property without his express permission, which violates the property rights libertarians hold dear....

They also tried to extort an exorbitant amount of money out of Ron when he first asked them to stop, which if they were actual good supporters, they would have worked to find a solution that works for all parties involved...

[Blake]

Ron Paul was around before the website.

Microsoft ended up compensating Mike Rowe for rights to his domain name.

if Paul wants these sites, looks like he's going to have to pay up, imo.

[Blake]

They're making money off his intellectual property without his express permission, which violates the property rights libertarians hold dear....

They also tried to extort an exorbitant amount of money out of Ron when he first asked them to stop, which if they were actual good supporters, they would have worked to find a solution that works for all parties involved...

what intellectual property did they use without Paul's permission?

[mouse]

Domain names belong to the person who was first to secure it. If anyone can bitch about wanting a domain name w/o paying then Mark Cuban would be working at Walmart.

He will will just have to modify the name like MySA.com did.

[Clipper Nation]

what intellectual property did they use without Paul's permission?
His name, which he has a common law trademark on...

[boutons_deux]

RP and his incompetent staff got punked by unregulated, libertarian free marketers. :lol

[boutons_deux]

Domain names belong to the person who was first to secure it. If anyone can bitch about wanting a domain name w/o paying then Mark Cuban would be working at Walmart.

He will will just have to modify the name like MySA.com did.

ICANN will not allow domain squatting, hasn't for long time. eg, IBM doesn't have to use myIBM.com because somebody squatted IBM.com

[boutons_deux]

Rand Paul’s Bin Laden Claim Is ‘Urban Myth’SummaryIn two recent statements, Sen. Rand Paul made the unsubstantiated claim that the U.S. government once “armed” and “funded” Osama bin Laden. The CIA and several of its top officials deny that the U.S. ever recruited, trained, armed or funded bin Laden during the Afghan war over Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Bin Laden himself has denied it.

Although the specter of a CIA-bin Laden link has been raised often since 9/11, no evidence has emerged to back it up. The CIA did covertly finance and arm Islamic fundamentalist Afghan factions in the fight against the Soviets, but the CIA has long maintained that it did not support the Arab fighters — including bin Laden — who came to Afghanistan to fight in solidarity with a Muslim country.



The CIA official in charge of the U.S. covert operation in support of the Afghan fighters during the late 1980s told us Paul is perpetuating an “urban myth.”
The CIA website states unequivocally “that the CIA never employed, paid, or maintained any relationship whatsoever with bin Laden.”
In a 1993 interview, bin Laden himself said, “Personally neither I nor my brothers saw evidence of American help.”


Several independent journalists and authors who have extensively researched and written about the CIA’s involvement in the Afghanistan conflict with the Soviets in the 1980s support the CIA’s contention. For example, Peter Bergen, a national security analyst for CNN who interviewed bin Laden in 1997, told us, “There is no evidence that the CIA funded or armed bin Laden or even knew who he was until 1993.”

Paul, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a possible candidate for president in 2016, did not offer any evidence in his public comments that the CIA armed and funded bin Laden. We repeatedly reached out to his office seeking backup for his claims, but we did not hear back.

http://factcheck.org/2013/02/rand-pauls-bin-laden-claim-is-urban-myth/

[MannyIsGod]

:lmao

[Blake]

His name, which he has a common law trademark on...

common law trademarks are regulated by the states.

If he's really claiming common law tm, then he's going to the wrong place.

But I bet he's not. I bet you are trying to claim it for him in order to sound like you know what you are talking about.

[Blake]

Edit: wow, it looks like Paul really is claiming common law with the state of California?
To which they referred him to the international IPO organization?

doesn't really make much sense, imo, but if he doesn't care about his perception as a hypocrite, I guess it's worth a shot.

[mouse]

ICANN will not allow domain squatting, hasn't for long time. eg, IBM doesn't have to use myIBM.com because somebody squatted IBM.com

I can assure you MySA.com rather have SA.com.

[boutons_deux]

sa.com is a dead page, a placeholder. looks like nobody is using for commercial/trademark purposes.