WIPO Panel Says Ron Paul Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking 303
An anonymous reader writes "Ron Paul lost his two cybersquatting complaints against RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org. In the case of RonPaul.org, Paul was been found guilty of 'reverse domain name hijacking'. A reverse domain name hijacking finding means that the arbitration panel believes the case was filed in bad faith, resulting in the abuse of the administrative process. The panel ruled this way since Paul filed the case after the owner of RonPaul.org had already offered to give him the domain for free. The panel also ruled against Paul for the RonPaul.com domain name."
may I lol? (Score:3, Funny)
I may lol.
For free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Paul filed the case after the owner of RonPaul.org had already offered to give him the domain for free.
Why was Ron Paul trying to use the force of government to coerce someone into doing something they were already going to do?
Re:For free? (Score:5, Funny)
A politician that doesn't follow the same set of rules that they claim everyone else should have to follow? Un-possible!
Re:For free? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about Ron's career history? The fact that Ron Paul has been in office on and off since the 1970s, has been a type four deliverer of pork to his district, has failed to pass or even develop solid legislation based on his professed ideology, and thus has been fairly ineffective given his ideological goals, and yet believes that somehow as President he would finally have the legislative power to make all his ideological dreams come true... and without exerting any that evil presidential power that would at least be necessary to do so? How about that? Ron Paul has been around a long enough time that his ineffectiveness sort of proves he either doesn't care as much as he says, or he's just not very good.
Re:For free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice way to miss the point, which is: Paul hasn't done diddley-squat with any of the power already entrusted to him.
Re:For free? (Score:4, Insightful)
And sabotaging the EPA, the FDA, and all the other regulatory agencies. Paul is old enough to know how filthy the air and water was before the EPA and how much more dangerous factories were before OSHA. As head of all these agencies he could have done a lot worse to the country than even Bush did.
If you put someone in power who thinks government is always the problem you're going to have a shitty ineffective government. I'd like to see more politicians in office who would keep corporations on a short leash. I LIKE being able to breathe while driving past a Monsanto plant. It was impossible before the EPA.
Re:For free? (Score:4, Insightful)
i think he would have been wildly more successful at doing things like ending the wars, closing Guantanamo,
Yeah, it's too bad he doesn't have a son in Congress who could take up that fight. If he did, he could take on assholes like this [humblelibertarian.com], who want to keep Gitmo open and the war going.
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You must also think he is a king and not a president.
But you can continue to be the Republicans bitch and buy there 'Obama doesn't do anything' line even though i every case it's the pubs refusing to budge, or moving the goalpost,
Re:For free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For free? (Score:5, Informative)
The
Re:For free? (Score:5, Insightful)
And in a free market they should be allowed to ask whatever price they want, whether two zorkmids or half a tonne of diamonds.
The price has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue here, which was whether Ron Paul had a right to the domains. He did not show that he did.
Re:For free? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems like Ron Paul was mad...
They wanted 250k for the site, but they did legitimately own it. Now, nobody in their right mind would appraise the site at 250k based on its code base and email list, but... there's nothing to stop them from asking 250k or even 1 mil for the site. Not sure what Ron didn't get here, but it makes me wonder if he was just providing lip service to the people during his political career based on this move.
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Actually the mailing list alone could easily be worth than $250k.
The site wouldn't be worth much, its the people following the site that determines the value.
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Actually the mailing list alone could easily be worth than $250k.
But if you're Ron Paul, you already have a giant mailing list of supporters. It could easily be the case that the ronpaul.com mailing list doesn't have anyone who isn't already known to the campaign.
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Does Ron Paul own the Name 'Ron Paul'? no, no he doesn't. Nor does he have copyright to it.
So you're snippet doesn't apply.
If I buy an acre of land on the corner of McDonalds and Hamburger street with the hopes of reselling it to McDonalds, should McDonalds be able to just take that land from me?
There is nothing wrong with domain squatting. And yes, I've been saying that since Domain came into existence. It got a bad rap because people with foresight bought a bunch, and geeks without foresight deemed it un
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so... you really think the result would be the same if they had owned .com with the same (or better) appraisal? Or maybe if it was something like hillaryclinton.com?
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sigh.. "owned (insert hollywood celebrity).com"
Re:For free? (Score:4, Insightful)
Clinton probably would have bought the domain and the mailing list. She's smart enough to know that starting legal proceedings against your own supporters is a generally a bad idea. The reasons this is news, is it's one of the most libertarian American politicians trying (and failing) to use the heavy boot of government to get around the free market.
It's the betrayal of Ron Paul's professed core principles over the fairly trivial matter of a domain name that is the real news.
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makes me wonder if he was just providing lip service to the people during his political career based on this move.
Gee, you think?
All politicians are liars. Yes, *ALL* of them. That means your favorite too. They're just sociopaths who've learned to leverage their charisma to exert control.
Re:For free? (Score:4, Interesting)
"In a free market"... What utter BS. "Finders keepers" is a fine argument for the schoolyard, but it's moral value is negligible. Ownership rights come with responibilities, especially ownership rights to unique resources. If a party decides to take ownership of something with the sole purpose of ransoming it to an owner who will actually use it, that is not "free market" - it's exploitation.
"Free market" only works when the market is actually free. Ransoming a unique resource is not the free market in action.
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"Finders keepers" is a fine argument for the schoolyard, but it's moral value is negligible. Ownership rights come with responibilities, especially ownership rights to unique resources. If a party decides to take ownership of something with the sole purpose of ransoming it to an owner who will actually use it, that is not "free
market" - it's exploitation.
So when applying that "logic" of yours to the oil and gas companies pulling the unique and limited resource of fossil fuels out of the ground, how exactly
Re:For free? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Basically, there's a bunch of cybersquatters snarfing any domain names that they can get for cheap and then selling them for many orders of magnitude more than they got them for. Maybe it'd still go on. Scalping goes on in sporting events for much the same reasons. But at least scalpers don't enjoy a go
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If I buy some land, build a house on it that I never intend to live in, I should give it away to the first person who wants to live in the house?
What if I see that a city is developing in a certain direction and I make a gamble to buy up some farm land that I do not develop, should I give that up to the first developer who comes alo
Re:For free? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Finders keepers" is a fine argument for the schoolyard, but
Actually, "Homesteading" is a central part of libertarianism. And according to that philosophy, no one has the moral authority to be able to tell the homesteader that they are not "responsibly" using their homestead/resources. Provided they make a clearly defined claim, and maintain a clear boundary, the claim is theirs.
[Disclaimer: I'm not a libertarian, but then, it would seem neither is Ron Paul.]
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"In a free market"... What utter BS. "Finders keepers" is a fine argument for the schoolyard, but it's moral value is negligible. Ownership rights come with responibilities, especially ownership rights to unique resources. If a party decides to take ownership of something with the sole purpose of ransoming it to an owner who will actually use it, that is not "free market" - it's exploitation.
"Free market" only works when the market is actually free. Ransoming a unique resource is not the free market in action.
So you saying it's illegal to buy property with the intent of selling it to someone else for a profit? Really?
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Actually, "finder keepers" is pretty much one of the core principles of libertarianism (and the free market) and one of the major reasons why other groups despise libertarian ethics. To libertarians, it shouldn't matter whether property is unique or not. According to the stated principles of all major branches of libertarianism, it is unethical to take someone's property by force unless it was acquired through violence or fraud. It is the most important and fundamental belief that all of libertarian phil
Re:For free? (Score:5, Insightful)
But yet when it comes to ransoming someone's health care, general health, or basic safety then it's fine to let the "free market" decide what that's worth without any regulation?
Ron Paul nutters like to live in their pretend amazing free market world until it actually bites them in the ass and then it's just not fair!
Actually, for the most part, the "limited government" crowd just doesn't want anyone telling *them* what to do. This will be an outrage because the government is letting some nobody interfere with what his all-important self wants.
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I think it wasn't so much that he didn't show he had a right to the domains, as he didn't show that the current owners didn't. How it's supposed to work is that someone who has rights to the name wins over someone who doesn't, but if both parties have a right to use the name then whoever registered it first wins. "Rights" here gets a bit fuzzy, too. Ron Paul himself obviously has a right to use his name, but eg. a blogger doing commentary on Ron Paul's political activities also has a right to use the name (
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Competition is impossible without a recognition of ownership. (You can't sell what you don't own.) And logically, ownership must be traced back to a first owner, and hence an original claim.
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Who's to say the two domains were even owned by the same people?
Re:For free? (Score:5, Funny)
Who's to say the two domains were even owned by the same people?
The linked article.
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Why was Ron Paul trying to use the force of government to coerce someone into doing something they were already going to do?
From the article (Really, sometimes reading it gives a whole new insight into a story):
The owners had offered to sell RonPaul.com to Paul but also offered to give him RonPaul.org as an alternative if Paul didn’t want to buy the .com.
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It helps to have some background too:
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/13/02/11/1247252/ron-paul-asks-un-for-help-geting-control-of-ronpaulcom-domain-from-fans [slashdot.org]
He did not want to pay 250k.
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So he's a big fan of the United Nations when it suits his purposes?
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Why not?
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Because anything that doesn't work out the way we expected couldn't possibly represent a free market.
Re:For free? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what exactly is fair?
1. The cost for the remaining registered years?
2. The cost for the 12+ years they have registered the domain?
3. The cost of the 12+ years of domain registration and the cost of a building up a valuable website with large traffic?
4. The actual value of the domain on the open market?
Be careful what you choose. The operators were just asking for some minor reimbursement for all the time they've put into the site. It is my understanding that the site draws enough traffic to make the advertising quite valuable and Paul wanted them to just give it to him, AND he used the very organization he frequently rallies against.
Re:For free? (Score:4, Insightful)
The article lacks numbers, but I have a feeling their asking price was far above and beyond the threshold of reasonable amounts. I just don't care enough to delve into it at 4:59 in the afternoon.
It was a quarter mil. Not an unreasonable amount to pay for the list of data it came with actually, from a fundraising data point of view - and that's ignoring all of the other social value. Of course, as a libertarian, he should admire their hard work and pricing power but feel free to walk away from a deal that's not beneficial to him.
Nah, let's just bring the WIPO into it.
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WIPO isn't the mutually agreed governing body of those who run the DNS network, ICANN is.
Under libertarianism, unless both Ron Paul and the domain owners agreed to use WIPO as an independent adjudicator, WIPO has no moral authority over domain name ownership.
Re:For free? (Score:4, Informative)
To quote Lew Rockwell [lewrockwell.com]:
Ron is not using the State to acquire RonPaul.com. He could have brought a lawsuit in US government courts, but he did not. He is seeking to have ICANN enforce its own rules against cybersquatting, including the rule against registering a famous person’s name and making money off it. Anyone registering a URL agrees to keep all the rules, just as he must pay a recurring fee. A URL is not private property in the normal sense. It is a license, and ICANN is a private, non-profit organization.
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.
Why did Ron wait so long to bring this claim? He did not feel he could do so as a public official. Once he became a private citizen again, he was freed.
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As a libertarian, I find the level of contortion you're willing to accept to defend Ron Paul's hypocritical approach to this issue is pretty awful.
The UN is a cartel created by the politicians of the world to serve their own interests. Every dime they get is stolen. Your Rockwell quote makes it sound akin to a non-profit organization like the United Way. Hardly.
And even if one accepts that ridiculous premise, if nothing else, Ron Paul has been amazingly foolish for walking into a situation that makes him
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I don't see what the UN part has to do with it. The rules are voluntary, period.
Now I don't even like the ICANN, but I don't like a number of corporations, and what else is a person to do, it's not wrong to do, certainly.
Fact is, he did wait until retiring before asking any organization to do this. To refrain from using one's powers as a politician is, I think, very honorable.
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How are the rules voluntary? If you have a domain name that you want to keep, and someone is trying to take it from you using this process, can you simply tell ICANN (spun off by the feds and still intertwined with them) and WIPO (part of the dreadful UN system) to go piss up a rope? No, of course not.
As for being honorable, I didn't mean to say that Ron Paul is the antichrist here, and I certainly don't mean to minimize the many good things he's done. But this isn't one of them.
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You seem to have missed the part where the panel decided that the current owner had abided by the rules and that Ron Paul was the one guilty of rules violations.
"Ron Paul Guilty." I can live with that. (Score:2)
because it makes him feel like a real man, that's why.
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Paul filed the case after the owner of RonPaul.org had already offered to give him the domain for free.
Why was Ron Paul trying to use the force of government to coerce someone into doing something they were already going to do?
Because he is a nutbag.
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When two people have a conflict and fail to reach an agreement on their own, they can either:
1- give up (what he should have done)
2- use physical force (illegal and against libertarian principles)
3- seek arbitration (what he did)
Arbitration ruled in favor of his opponent, which is a bummer to him. There is no force involved here, and no government. WIPO is merely the assigned arbitrator in international domain disputes. ICANN has authority over the .com and .org domains, their assigned mediator for such
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He was trying to use the courts, which are a legitimate means of conflict resolution to libertarians. People make a big deal of WIPO, but the only reason why they're involved is the fact that they're the body in charge of arbitration (read, the people in charge of handling the court process) when the two parties are not in the same country. He didn't go crying to the UN or to government, he asked lawyers to take the case to court, which is entirely legitimate, from a libertarian perspective. I think he w
Re:For free? (Score:4, Interesting)
But he didn't cross his stated principles.
Yes it did. He tried to use government to force to transfer ownership of private property to himself. It's a betrayal of everything he claims to stand for (and it's not the first time he's betrayed the principles he claims to hold). It's also pretty stupid to turn on your supporters in such a hypocritical way. The Libertarain solution would have been to start a kickstarter (or other) campaign to raise the money to buy the domain if he wasn't willing to pay the money out of pocket or out of an election campaign fund.
My prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
I predict the Pauls will use this for political gain. All it takes is a bit of spin:
Clearly the "official" establishment is failing to support the little guy who just wants to use his own name. Because they obviously aren't catering to the desires of a particularly-vocal individual, they must of course just be a tool for oppression by the Big Government. After all, what good are these "rules" and "procedures" when they hinder the industrious and innovative people building their own future, and instead help the lazy people just using others' names?
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Based on the new YourName.com legislation, I will repeatedly file name changes and RULE the Internet as Father and Son!
Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
He was being a hypocritical bastard.
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He was being a hypocritical bastard.
Next thing you'll tell us that the pope is a catholic.
Reading the article... (Score:2)
...it doesn't actually look like Paul is guilty of anything but refusing to accept a settlement that was unreasonable in the first place. I already didn't trust the WIPO before, and this certainly didn't help improve their image in my eyes.
Re:Reading the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
...it doesn't actually look like Paul is guilty of anything but refusing to accept a settlement that was unreasonable in the first place.
"You want this one? You can have it for free - but this one over here we've added a shit-ton of value to so we want some compensation (below free-market rate IMO) for it."
Doesn't seem terribly unreasonable to me, even ignoring the fact that RP likes to tell people that he's something close to a pure libertarian.
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...it doesn't actually look like Paul is guilty of anything but refusing to accept a settlement that was unreasonable in the first place.
"You want this one? You can have it for free - but this one over here we've added a shit-ton of value to so we want some compensation (below free-market rate IMO) for it."
Doesn't seem terribly unreasonable to me, even ignoring the fact that RP likes to tell people that he's something close to a pure libertarian.
How do you arrive at the judgement that $250,000 is "below free-market rate"??
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...it doesn't actually look like Paul is guilty of anything but refusing to accept a settlement that was unreasonable in the first place.
"You want this one? You can have it for free - but this one over here we've added a shit-ton of value to so we want some compensation (below free-market rate IMO) for it."
Doesn't seem terribly unreasonable to me, even ignoring the fact that RP likes to tell people that he's something close to a pure libertarian.
How do you arrive at the judgement that $250,000 is "below free-market rate"??
The email list that came with the site was valued at over $2,000,000.
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The email list that came with the site was valued at over $2,000,000.
Yeah, a list of people gullible enough to believe the tripe that Ron Paul spouts would be very valuable to marketers.
It's fun watching the Paul fans running around trying to justify his actions. Much like Ayn Rand supporters justifying her actions. I mean, nobody's perfect, but to hear libertarians first heaping scorn upon people who use government services, and then go bawling to the government as soon as they need those services, is truly awesome. Welcome to the 47%!
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$250,000 is chump change to a political campaign. Just the Email list with it was worth far more.
Wikipedia says of the campaign,"By April 2012, the campaign had raised more than $38 million."
that's without "RP.com" think of what they could have made with it.
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You mean off the one name on rp.com that was not on their own official lists?
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...but this one over here we've added a shit-ton of value to so we want some compensation (below free-market rate IMO) for it.
This leads to a question - exactly what value did they add to it, aside from paying the domain registration fees and keeping the website up? Anyone could do those things for a lot less than $250k, even if done over 10+ years. Also, in fairness to Paul (hypocrisy aside), it was his name. Not too many Ron Pauls out there in this world...
Then again, a previous employer of mine shelled out $7m (yes, million) USD for a .com of their company's name, namely because the dude that had it was using it for his own re
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exactly what value did they add to it
A comprehensive mailing list for RP fanatics, and a revenue stream from advertising.
Also, in fairness to Paul (hypocrisy aside), it was his name.
While we are on the subject of "fairness" according to TFA the umpire found RP to be engaging in "reverse domain name hijacking" (knowingly making a false accusation of squatting).
Off topic nerd porn (Score:4, Funny)
This comment is off topic, and you may freely moderate it so.
Once upon a time long ago I was intrigued by the rapid absorption of domain names and their escalating value. Particularly short names. And so I wrote a perl script to permute all possible 4-letter domains and look them up in the hope of identifying some interesting names to squat. I'm not really proud of that, but it was long ago when such stuff wasn't as abhorrent as the current day. I was sipping Maker's Mark on the rocks all night. I identified and registered a few, and one came up - iran.com, which could have been lucrative with the runner community. I was placing the order for the iran.com domain on Christmas eve when just then my wife came up, stroked my neck and said "come to bed." I got some. That was the most expensive nookie I ever got.
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You see a conflict between his actions and his ideology because you have an incorrect notion of what "libertarianism" actually means. It doesn't mean "you should be able to do anything you can get away with to make a buck", it stands for the protection of individual liberties and free markets. Identifying products correctly (in this case, his political brand) is essential to free markets, so it is reasonable for him to try to get this resolved.
More importantly, the DNS system itself isn't a free market syst
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...it doesn't actually look like Paul is guilty of anything but refusing to accept a settlement that was unreasonable in the first place.
RTFA - he was found gulity of reverse domain name hijacking, which isn't stealing a PTR record as one might think, but accusing someone of domain squatting when you demonstrably know they aren't squatting (in this case because they offered it to you).
I also fail to find any reference to a settlement.
RP: Give me both A and B, or else.
Owners: It's our property. You can buy A or get B for free.
RP: Else!
That's not a settlement.
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...it doesn't actually look like Paul is guilty of anything but refusing to accept a settlement that was unreasonable in the first place.
So, in Libertopia someone who wants something gets to decree what makes an exchange offer unreasonable, and use some ruling body to force the other party to hand it over if they don't lower their price?
Libertopia must be nice... if you're part of the in crowd that gets whatever you want. Too bad for everyone else.
Free market! (Score:5, Funny)
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Just don't register ronpaul.xxx (*shudder!*)
(now if you'll excuse me, I have to go try and wash my brain out...)
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A pox be on you i say!
Site owners not so innocent looking. (Score:3, Informative)
According to whois, RonPaul.com was registered in 2000 while RonPaul.org was registered in 1999. The current owner of RonPaul.org is DN Capital Inc, a company based in Panama, while RonPaul.com is owned by WKF Corp, another company based in Panama.
This right here is sending up red flags. A "fan site" whose domain name is owned by some corporation in Panama? This isn't some Hary Alderson in Vermont who owns the domain name, as one might expect from a fan site. It is some company in Panama who, for all we know, may or may not be a shell company.
Second, Ron Paul DID NOT go to "The UN" for this, he went to the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, whose JOB it is to settle disputes like this. There is nothing hypocritical about this. WIPO would exist absent the UN for this purpose. He may not LIKE the UN, but he is working within the system as it currently exists even though he would like that system changed. I don't like the city government where I live and wish it were set up differently, but you bet your butt I go to them when I have a problem or need something taken care of under their jurisdiction.
RP wanted only the domain name, yet the "owners" of the site wanted to sell him the whole thing for a huge chunk of cash? That's not "Fan site", that's "trying to hit up a public figure for money and cash out". Wanting to sell the whole nine yards so eagerly, and for so much, doesn't sound like any "fan site" I've ever heard of.
Sorry, the owners of ronpaul.com are looking awfully shady. Say what you want about Dr. Paul, the owners of the domain are not looking so innocent and it is looking that Dr, Paul may have a decent case for cybersquatting. We simply don't have enough information to be 100% sure. Considering Dr. Paul's past, I'm tending toward giving him the benefit of the doubt for now, but I would certainly like more information before definitively siding one way or the other on this. There is probably a lot of details that we don't know about.
Re:Site owners not so innocent looking. (Score:5, Insightful)
A "fan site" whose domain name is owned by some corporation
Corporations are just groups of people freely associating with each other.
in Panama?
Property rights are a fundamental human right. It doesn't matter where you are located; you have the right to your own property.
Spin it any way you like, the good doctor wants to use an arm of the UN to confiscate other peoples' property by threat of force.
A much better way to resolve the problem would be by using the free market: There are trillions of DNS names still available on the free market for only a couple of bucks per year. He should just pick one and be happy that he obtained this new property without resorting to coercion.
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Domain names are not objects, however they also are not intellectual property like copyrights or patents because a domain name does not have the same ability to be used by many without depriving the original owner of it's utility.
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Property rights are a fundamental human right. It doesn't matter where you are located; you have the right to your own property.
Err... who decides if it is your property or my property? Is that somehow included in this "fundamental right" ?
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I'm a free man, so mah GUN decides!
(Unless you have a bigger gun, then I'll go crying to the local government-formed organization. Boo hoo!)
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Eh, recently there are about as many slashdot articles about "gun" as there are about "GNU". Check it:
https://www.google.com/search?q=gun&as_qdr=m&as_sitesearch=slashdot.org [google.com]
https://www.google.com/search?q=gnu&as_qdr=m&as_sitesearch=slashdot.org [google.com]
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"Threat of force?"
I hear the WIPO has storm troopers now who bust down your door, slap you, then go back to the office and email ICANN, "Hey, transfer that domain to this other guy."
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RP wanted only the domain name, yet the "owners" of the site wanted to sell him the whole thing for a huge chunk of cash? That's not "Fan site", that's "trying to hit up a public figure for money and cash out". Wanting to sell the whole nine yards so eagerly, and for so much, doesn't sound like any "fan site" I've ever heard of.
In a free market unencumbered by government regulation, the value of anything is precisely the sum that party B pays party A for it. Everything else is just negotiating tactic. In other words, Ron Paul just tried to use a supra-national organization to negotiate down the price of party A's property. Clearly, Libertarians are libertarian only for as long as it allows them to make more money. Otherwise, they're perfectly happy to invoke regulations.
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I'd mod you up, but i never have mod points when they matter.
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Clearly, Libertarians are libertarian only for as long as it allows them to make more money. Otherwise, they're perfectly happy to invoke regulations.
No, clearly Ron Paul is. Nice try, though.
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I think he was just saying that RP isn't really a Libertarian.
We'll see how fast Libertarians kick him to the curb for this. A few posters already have, but others are invoking pretzel logic to prove that he was acting on the principles he (usually) espouses.
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WIPO is a UN agency. So technically Ron Paul did go to the "UN".
So what? If my grandma had balls, she'd be called grandpa. You are fabricating a lot of conjecture to defend his hypocrisy. Despite his insistence that the free market is the cure for all of his issues, he resorted
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Look, it's simple: if the USDA didn't inspect meat-packing plants, the free market would step in and offer that service. Therefore, the USDA is not a government agency. And Ron Paul should get meat for free.
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Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the other party is indeed "shady". So what? According to libertarian principles, the gov't and gov't bodies have no business interfering with non-fraudulent activities (or otherwise probable crimes).
What is the fraudulent activity involved here? Why would a touchy-feely assessment of the personal character of one party (the shady scumbags) actually matter unless and until there is clear evidence of fraud?
Re:Site owners not so innocent looking. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Odd, because when I do a whois, ronpaul.com points to a privacy service. If you had read the decision about ronpaul.org, you would have found this to explain the Panama Conspiracy:
Re: (Score:2)
it is looking that Dr, Paul may have a decent case for cybersquatting. We simply don't have enough information to be 100% sure.
According to TFA, the fat lady has finished singing, the umpire has determined that RP was guilty of knowingly making false squatting accusations.
Panama:
Have you considered that Hary Alderson in Vermont would be a fool to legally entangle his personal assets (such as his house) with his very public political advocacy sites?
Have you considered that registering a company (or two) in Panama might be the cheapest way to avoid the very real possibility of personal bankruptcy should the web sites be sued
Apparently schadenfreude.com is avilable. (Score:5, Funny)
Reverse? (Score:2)
You're joking right? (Score:2)
It's official (Score:2)
Our domain name system is totally fucked. If I want to go to Ron Paul's website of course I will try RonPaul.com, and I certainly don't want to go to some scammer's website when I type in that address. The system is broken. We didn't build it to serve the interests of some millionaire scammers, so why are we tolerating this nonsense. Just because we don't like Ron Paul? This is insane.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree that it's broken[*], but you won't fix it by handing the domains over to the most influential people who demand them.
[*] What if someone else named Ron Paul wanted the domain? Wouldn't he have as much claim to it as the famous Ron Paul does?
Re: (Score:2)
As one of those libertarian types, clearly he felt that anything being offered for free was a trap....
and anything that was being offered for money was too expensive, even though he really wanted it, so he should get it for frees.
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There are strings attached, namely that he wouldn't be able to get the .com domain....
No, pretty sure he could also get the .com domain if he paid $250K. Regardless of whether or not he accepted the free .org. I don't see any strings.
Re: (Score:2)
It was never his to "give up".
re: free market (Score:2)
As the exorcist said, "possession is 9/10 of the law."
Re: (Score:2)
Considering recent events, I bet that if the US passes one more gun control law, then the entire country will descend into a thousand years of tyranny and oppression. Thus I have proved that all gun laws are bad and unconstitutional.
Okay, your turn. This is fun!
Re: (Score:2)
Considering recent events, I bet if this concerned a liberal instead of a libertarian, ICE would seize the domain a declare it as belonging to that liberal politician and the justices would turn a blind eye on it.
Which recent events make you want to bet that way?