Hi Mike, On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 2:53 PM, Mike Winters <[email protected]> wrote: > This has been dragging on for so long, I forget what it was originally > about…
Policy "improvements" to facilitate buying addressing in the ARIN region and transferring them to China. I concede fault for being one of the guys who tends to derail discussions into well worn tracks like IP address property rights. If have something to say on the original topic, the mic is open and folks like myself are still listening. And ready to help you be heard if you've something which hasn't already been said. > So if someone is using addresses that are unassigned or assigned by ARIN > (but not used) then the unregistered party would own them. Which means ARIN > and the “registered user” would be the ones subject to a tortious > interference claim. There's an argument to be made there, at least with respect to the bogons (use of unassigned addresses). With never-registered addresses I'm not sure how you'd establish that your use was more legitimate than anyone else's. It's not tortious interference for me to camp in an open spot in a national park that you promised to your clients. Not my fault that you made a baseless promise. You'd have to express some demonstrable reason that you expected to have consistent exclusive use of the address block. If not registration then what? > Also, your “natural conclusion” has a major problem, you would have to > completely overlook paragraph 7 of the RSA which clearly states that there > are no property rights. Very true. I suspect this is the most significant hurdle the registrant would have to overcome. The strongest point in the registrant's favor is this: standing in a courtroom, it's not enough for ARIN's council to say what IP addresses aren't. They must, without appearing to the judge to be blithering idiots, explain what IP addresses in fact are and why anyone would pay such sums as they do to obtain them if they are nothing more than integers in a database. The registrant's counsel need only respond that ARIN's wacky and complicated explanation is, in fact, an elaborate lie meant to conceal that IP addresses are exactly what they appear to be: an intangible property with trivially determined dollar value, bought and sold like any other, and a critical component in the operation of a multi-billion dollar industry. And oh-by-the-way, that was a contract of adhesion (courts hate contracts of adhesion) where ARIN had monopoly powers (courts disapprove of monopolies too) to deny addresses if the registrant failed to feign consent. It's a civil case, so the standard is "preponderance of the evidence." Paraphrased, that means: which evidence is more convincing. ARIN presents the RSA, the MOAs and maybe an RFC or two. Seats an expert or two to talk about the IETF, and so on. The registrant objects to the MOAs. Presents newspaper reports of sales, economic analyses of the Internet industry and ARIN's fee schedule. Seats an expert or two to talk about the linchpin role IP addresses play in the Internet business, without which the Internet is impossible. Which explanation of what an IP address is do you figure will make more sense to a judge? Finally: Legacy Registrations. Legacy registrations are not hampered by an ARIN contract - they don't have one. This means a legacy registrant would not have to overcome anything written in the RSA. Should a judge first determine that someone's legacy addresses are intangible property, it becomes a much harder to determine that the rest of the IP addresses aren't. > It additionally says that the holder may not > attempt to obtain or assert any rights over the number resources, so by > going to court and asserting such, you would be in breach of the RSA. I've seen less enforceable provisions that RSA 7c. Short version: this line is pure intimidation. Expect it to have no force in law whatsoever. In contractual terms, it would be "severed" for being "contrary to public policy" because it "seeks to interfere with the administration of justice." In fact, expect ARIN to be sanctioned if they make a serious attempt to push it. Besides, does it not strike you as odd that a registrant would need to be prohibited from seeking property rights if addresses are clearly not property? It all but stipulates that ARIN understands addresses as property to be in open dispute, not the long-settled matter they'd like to present to the judge. ARIN counsel knows this, of course, and will never go beyond rattling sabers. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ [email protected] [email protected] Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> _______________________________________________ PPML You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List ([email protected]). Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at: http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml Please contact [email protected] if you experience any issues.
