Ron Paul brings in the black helicopters

...on ronpaul.com

Free Market at work, ladies and gentlemen.

Libertarian hero Ron Paul tries to register a domain name, finds out it is already taken, demands that the [one world] government obtain it for him.

I hope Ronpaul.com beats him and takes his lunch money. Ron Paul would have us pull out of the UN, but as long as it suits him he'll be happy to take advantage of 'em.

Oh god.

This story makes me so happy. The only thing that could make it better is if the ACLU steps in to help defend RonPaul.com.

This is beautiful on every level.

Edit: Jesus, every time I think about this too much, I just start laughing. This honestly could have made my entire day.

This is a story from The Onion, right? Has to be. Has to be.

I'm trying to think of something funny to say. If only there was some angle about this that can be used for comedy!

God help me, I'm about to defend Ron Paul.

It seriously looks like this site is built around pushing T-shirts and bumper stickers that go right into the owner's pocket. Yeah, RP is having to use the very demon he decries to get it back, but there aren't exactly a plethora of avenues available to fetch a domain (and this dude is apparently squatting on a fair few). So ... fair enough. And offering to sell your mailing list is never kosher, no matter what the cause.

Free market

Gimme a second.

There we go.

The owner of RonPaul.com owns property that Ron Paul is interested in owning and has set a fair market value on this property.

Don't get me wrong, I totally absorb the full irony, but I think even über-libs would get pissy about someone trying to use someone's name for the sake of profit under the shady guise of public service.

Jesus, now I'm defending libertarians, too. Fuck you, Ron Paul.

They would...if it were anyone but Ron Paul.

Be honest, we'd think it was funny if it happened to Rand Paul as well.

I am puzzled, because I believe the libertarian solution for this would be for Ron Paul to create a competing internet that serves people of all races, where the RonPaul.com domain belongs to him. Yet this is not what he is doing.

"Would you kindly transfer the domain name to me."

Apparently the free market system has decided laughing at Ron Paul has first priority. Getting pissy will have to wait its turn or create a competing thread.

Or go to the U.N.

Why won't Ron Paul be content with RonPaul.biz? Does he hate capitalism?

Domain squatters are pretty much vile scum. So, at least everyone is on equal footing here.

Except that this isn't a squatter, because the site is being used.

I don't really get how this guy is a domain squatter. Or at least, even if this guy is a domain squatter, I don't see how RonPaul.com is an example of that. RonPaul.com is basically the top fan site for Ron Paul. It's a functional site which contains more information than any of Ron Paul's campaign sites ever did. It's not like you go there and it says 'SITE COMING SOON!' or 'APACHE ERROR' or 'YOU CAN BUY THIS SITE FOR $250k'. I mean, the site's fanbase apparently involves an opt-in newsletter with nearly two hundred thousand people on it. And it's been around for over ten years. It's older than Rand Paul's political career.

It sounds like he's squatting on a whole bunch of other site names.

Another thought: if it only costs $250,000, if I'm George Soros I'm seriously considering posing as Ron Paul, buying the site, and putting up a HA HA SUCKERS when it gets handed off finally.

Just thought the thread needed this!

ALTRUISM.

Edit: shoot, shift6 beat me to it.

The ONLY THING that would have made the story more perfect is if the Freedom Package (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaha ha ha aaaaah) was priced in bitcoins.

They insist the mailing list is worth well over the $250k, so honestly it's only proper market sense at this point to buy it for $250k, then turn around and offer it to Ron Paul for $500k. The markets must be free!

Edi: never mind, misread.

Unfortunately for the funny ha-ha of the whole situation, the owner of RonPaul.com probably owns that property in contravention of applicable laws and sounds like an asshole.

Edit to add that the fair market value of property that one owns illegally is pretty much nil.

What laws apply that make his ownership claim illegitimate?

So I'm actually a bit curious about the UN in all of this. ICANN has a dispute policy, and you can argue trademarks in the US legally (because we sort of own ICANN which everyone else is rightfully upset about), but I cannot find anything about the UN having a domain name dispute system. UN members are members of ICANN's advisory board, but you'd still be chatting with a few countries, not the entire UN.

The argument here is interesting because the site is setup in good faith: it's a site about Ron Paul, and it's actively in use to be a discussion page about him. He's hanging it all on the trademark claim, unlike Hillary Clinton's attempts at shutting down a scam site where they could claim trademark and bullshit squatting.

I can see Ron Paul winning this, but holy shit that's a lot of bridges to burn over $250k and a sudden desire to do something with the domain. I just don't see the win involved in suing to shut down a fan site.

It wouldn't be tremendously surprising to find out that the Paulies assumed the "I" in ICANN stands for "International" and just jumped to conclusions that the UN MUST BE INVOLVED CIRCLE THE WAGONS.

EDIT: herp derp what does the I stand for

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

Yeah, ICANN is just US because WE MADE THE INTERNET, BITCHES. I think there have been two rumored revolt plans when we've made federal law about ICANN's behaviors and the rest of the world cried foul.

In this case, he is actually appealing to the UN's Intellectual Property Forum or whatever, which just strikes me as odd since ICANN will happily take on cases of trademark infringement themselves I thought. Since it's a US based issue, I'm pretty sure even the Federal courts would be happy to jump in. In Clinton's case the domain owner wasn't US based.

Yeah I know, my herping and derping was because I managed to get it wrong in the initial post I made, which is pretty stupid considering they send me email every week.

Maybe Paul is worried they'll go Sealand on him.

Then Paul can board Sealand with UN troopers in what will be the blockbuster movie of the summer!

There really is nothing in this story that I don't find amusing as all hell.

I'm kind of reminded of Nissan vs Nissan.

There was a point when Nissan's website wasn't an ad-laden piece of shit, but per his story he's spent upwards of $3m defending his claim, so I guess I can't blame him. I do wonder if his computer company is at all profitable enough to deal with all of that shit. Or if the ads are basically his whole livelihood these days.

Too bad he didn't think to grab uzi.com.

He went to WIPO.