Now that he’s no longer giving speeches on Capitol Hill, Ron Paul’s main platform for spreading his libertarian message is the Web. He’d like for his command center to be RonPaul.com. But right now, that domain name is owned by a cohort of his supporters, who since 2008 have used the address to post Paul-related news.
There is an existential logic behind Paul’s desire to own his eponymous domain. “Everybody knows that RonPaul.com should be Ron Paul,” the former congressman said when TIME spoke with him recently about life after Congress. “It’s your identity.” Yet the owners, including Tim Martin, who via email identifies the group as several expats living in Panama, aren’t ready to hand it over. That means recovering the address won’t be as simple as Paul’s reasoning.
[discussion of legal framework]
So how will Paul’s case fair? Attorney Ari Goldberger, who won the case against Bloomberg in 2001, says that Paul’s seven books could help the former congressman establish a common law trademark. The fact that the site links to unofficial merchandise suggests the owners have tried to profit off Paul’s name, Goldberger says. Another point for Paul’s case is his allegation that the owners attempted to sell him RonPaul.com for $848,000, and then for $250,000 before the complaint was filed. On the other hand, RonPaul.com’s owners have long displayed a disclaimer saying the “fan site” is not officially associated with Paul, and they’ve produced nearly five years of posts about liberty and Paul’s sundry campaigns, which makes it hard to argue that they were all about the money from the outset.
Martin says that the owners started to make “a little” money off the merchandise starting in 2010 and that the offer to sell the domain name for $848,000 “was apparently made by the former owner.” He emphasizes that their offer to sell the site for $250,000 included a mailing list of 170,000 Paul supporters. And he says they would have handed over the domain name for free if they felt had shown that “he honors and appreciates our hard work and support.”
The arbitrator is currently weighing all these arguments. In the end, Paul knows he may instead have to make do with a domain like DrRonPaul.com. Having the eponymous domain name “would be helpful,” he says. “But I figure if the name’s the whole thing, then my message isn’t strong enough.”
