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Ron Paul See other Ron Paul Articles Title: Ron Paul, UN Hater, Asks UN To Take RonPaul.com Forcefully From Ron Paul's Biggest Supporters from the this-would-appear-to-be-a-mistake dept A year ago, we pointed out how hypocritical it was for Ron Paul (at the time still a Congressional Representative and a candidate for President) to file a ridiculous lawsuit, clearly abusing trademark law, in an effort to unmask some anonymous internet users who had made a video that attacked another candidate, John Huntsman, and closed with a claim that the video was from Ron Paul supporters. Many of Pauls' supporters actually believed the video was a fake, from Huntsman supporters, seeking to discredit Ron Paul. Even if that was true, there was simply no excuse to then abuse trademark law to try to take away someone's anonymity. And, yes, it was an abuse of trademark law -- as he both claimed trademark on his name and claimed that the video was a "use in commerce" (it was not). Even if you believe the videomakers should have been exposed, I would hope you'd agree that abusing a totally unrelated law to do so would be a mistake, and (to us) seemed to go 100% against the things Ron Paul claimed to stand for. Thankfully, a judge quickly agreed and killed the lawsuit. In writing about this, many of Paul's more ardent supporters trashed us both in our comments, and on various Ron Paul websites. I'm a little curious how they feel now, in a similar situation, where Ron Paul has turned his legal sights on them. As a whole bunch of folks have sent in, Ron Paul has filed a UDRP complaint against the site RonPaul.com, seeking to have WIPO turn over the domain to him. RonPaul.com has basically been the central source for the massive grassroots effort that supported Ron Paul in his last two Presidential campaigns -- leading many other candidates to envy Paul's ability to connect with the internet generation. The reality, of course, was much of that actually had to do with a few of his most dedicated fans, and their ability to spread his message via a series of grassroots websites, including RonPaul.com. To have Paul turn around and seek to have WIPO turn over the domain is incredible on so many different levels, once again suggesting that many of the things Ron Paul claims to have believed in go completely out the window at times -- even when it involves turning on the very people who built up his reputation. Even more bizarre is that not only is he turning on his most ardent supporters and effectively taking them to court, but he's using WIPO, a part of the United Nations, to do so. Ron Paul hates the UN and would like the US to leave the UN. As he once said: The choice is very clear: we either follow the Constitution or submit to UN global governance. American national sovereignty cannot survive if we allow our domestic laws to be crafted by an international body. This needs to be stated publicly more often. If we continue down the UN path, America as we know it will cease to exist. And yet, here he is, running to the UN, and trying to forcefully take away a super successful site from his biggest fans supporting him, using the force of that same United Nations? Incredible. Reading through the background and history, and then digging into the claims Paul's lawyer makes, suggests that Paul has made a huge mistake here. The backstory is that in a recent interview Paul expressed some minor regret that he did not hold the domain: Alex Jones: Well, God bless you, sir, I hope we can get you back again in a month. What are any other websites that are important, just www.CampaignForLiberty.org? Ron Paul: There’s that, and we’ll be listing some new things there because we’re making some other WebPages. I’m going to have a home page. Unfortunately, I didn’t have RonPaul.com, so I’m going to have to have RonPaulsHomepage.com. That will be coming up, but it’s not ready yet. In response, some of his fans told the site's operators they should look to hand over the site. The operators noted that over the past 4.5 years, and through two high profile Presidential campaigns, they were at the center of building up massive grassroots support for Paul, and they had not had any request for the domain, but they were happy to talk it over: 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. We put our lives on hold and invested 4.5 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. ..... ....In other words, from the very beginning, they were explicit that they were grassroots supporters, and not the campaign or the candidate. For Paul and his lawyers to argue otherwise is simply ridiculous. Respondents later offered to sell to Complainant for $250,000 and to provide as a "free gift" with the purchase of . This reaches a level that one might call "lying." The original letter is quite explicit. They would prefer not to sell RonPaul.com at all, and the offer of RonPaul.org for free was not "with the purchase of " but a no-strings-attached offer to Ron Paul if he wanted to use RonPaul.org as his future domain (since it would be less disruptive to his grassroots supporters). When you read through all of this, it's really quite incredible. Not once does the filing even hint at what the domain has been used for over the past 4.5 years. If you read the filing without context, you'd think that it was solely devoted to a commercial site pretending to be Ron Paul's real site, and the entire effort was built up just to try to sell it to Paul. For a politician who built up his grassroots supporters in large part because of his authenticity and his willingness to speak honestly and truthfully about issues, to turn on his biggest supporters with a pile of hogwash, while clearly abusing a process he doesn't even believe in, to try to forceably take away the site from his fans... is incredible. As the operators of the site themselves note: 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? Who knows who is advising Paul on this move, but this seems like a massive miscalculation. Maybe he doesn't care any more, now that he's out of Congress. Maybe he's decided that all those years of standing up as a principled politician can be thrown out the window because he really wants RonPaul.com. Either way, this seems destined to be a stain on his legacy. Poster Comment: This is freakin hilarious. Much more at link. See also http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120119/01493317470/what-is-ron-paul-thinking-sues-to-unmask-anonymous-internet-users.shtml and http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120309/15211018059/sorry-ron-paul-you-dont-get-to-abuse-trademark-law-to-unveil-anonymous-internet-users.shtml about Ron's ridiculous youtube suit (which he lost). Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Artisan (#0)
When you read through all of this, it's really quite incredible. In other words, they offered to let Ron Paul use some space there "rent-free". Indeed it is incredible and befuddling because RonPaul.org routes to RonPaul.com [aka RonPaul .com with a space before .com] and RonPaul2012.net routes now to ronpaul16.com, as if it's a campaign site for 2016. RonPaul2012.com routes to Ron Paul's official Campaign for Liberty site. I think the sites in dispute that are marketing/profiting by using Ron Paul's name are Jack Hunter enterprises, which are not approved, endorsed or reviewed by Ron Paul or his staff. Am posting this video as a reminder of who Jack Hunter is (aka Southern Avenger): Why Rand Was Right to Endorse Romney | Published on Jun 9, 2012 by Jack Hunter Ron Paul files complaint with UN agency in fight over namesake website Published February 11, 2013 / FoxNews.com They “subjected themselves to this proceeding in this forum when they registered RonPaul.com with an Australian registrar," Warrington said. ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
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