If it's copyright, the judge won't do that. There's no such thing as an "exclusive right to use" in copyright.
On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 1:15 PM, William Herrin <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Jun 3, 2015 at 5:02 AM, Owen DeLong <[email protected]> wrote: >> Mr. Herrin in bringing up tortious interference claims that to be indication >> of an “exclusive right to use” accompanying the number registry. >> Unfortunately, this is not true. It does represent a precedence-based >> presumption about the determination of who is the “interfering party” in a >> case where interference exists. However, an exclusive right to use would go >> further than that. > > Hi Owen, > > That's possible. However, I wouldn't bet the farm on a judge not > following the path from tortious interference to its natural > conclusion: that a block of Internet addresses is documentary > intangible property under common law, subject to centuries of well > understood precedent over folks' rights. When in doubt, what quacks > like a duck is a duck. > > >> As an example, if Company A has a registration for 1.2.3.0/24 and uses it >> entirely on their internal network without advertising it to the internet >> and Company B also uses it on their internal network without advertising it, >> there are then at least two possible legal scenarios… >> >> Scenario 1, A’s registration includes an exclusive right to use. In this >> case, if A were to learn of B’s usage, they may well have a civil claim >> against B for violating that exclusive right to use. A case for tortious >> interference really doesn’t exist here because there is no interference. >> >> Scenario 2, which I believe is applicable in this case… Since B’s use does >> not interfere with A’s use, there is no interference and no case for >> tortious interference exists. > > I think you've offered a pretty tortured chain of logic. A far simpler > explanation is that the rights in question are constrained to the > public Internet. IP addresses are more than integers only when they > appear in someone's Internet routing table. The law is long familiar > with intangibles whose existence is bound by context. Indeed, the law > already has excessive precedent establishing the number on a bank > check as an intangible property, but only in a specific context. > > >> Thus, the possibility of a case of tortious interference alone is >> insufficient to prove a right to exclusive use. > > Perhaps. Time will tell. > >> There is precedence for this in the Amateur radio system as well. Nobody has >> any exclusive rights to frequencies or frequency pairs used for repeaters. >> However, a repeater which is registered and allocated frequency pairs by the >> local repeater coordinator (a non-government body, similar, but not identical >> to ARIN) gets interference from a repeater which is not “coordinated”, the >> FCC will side with the coordinated repeater and ask the non-coordinated >> repeater to take steps to resolve the interference. > > Dubious as precedent. Regulation of Ham radio frequencies flows > directly from current federal statute. The only vaguely comparable > source of governmental authority regarding Internet routing stems from > a National Science Foundation research project that ended 20 years ago > with something that could be reasonably described as abandonment. > More, during the project's run, the NSF failed to offer any guidance > that was particularly on point for this debate. > > >> Like it or not, the internet is held together by good will and cooperation. >> The high level of cooperation from ISPs with the RIR system is what >> gives registration in the RIR system meaning and not some sort of >> government-like power or army of enforcement officers. > > All common law starts as a violation of some mass-respected convention > of human behavior that victims choose to challenge in court. At which > point the court fits the facts into the nearest framework precedent > provides. The decisions the judge makes then establish the new > precedent, the new law, that governs how similar sets of facts are > treated in future cases. Such law endures until and unless overridden > by statute. > > I think the closest available framework that makes any kind of sense > within the history of jurisprudence is that Internet address blocks > are documentary intangible property. John disagrees. Still, I can't > help but notice that when ARIN has been in court, counsel has been in > no rush to induce a judge to clarify the matter. Indeed ARIN appears > to have sought every other avenue in which each case could be > concluded without a judge having to reach the property question. > > I think ARIN counsel is far less confident of prevailing on the > address-aren't-property claim than John lets on. And I think he has > good reason for concern. > > 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. _______________________________________________ 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.
