Trying an anaolgy:
The character string is land; the name is akin to real estate improvements.
You should be able to own the improvements to the land you have made - the
value you have created - but what about the underlying land? How do
you/Should you - keep them separate? Is there a public right of way?
Where does the metaphor break down? How does it work? (And note that there
are lots of arguments about land, too!)
Esther
At 12:11 AM 04/02/99 -0500, Craig Simon wrote:
>Kerry Miller wrote:
>> Its only the trademark interests which have proclaimed DN strings to be
intellectual property, over and above its original use as a convenience to
the commonality of net-users.
>
>I think I've heard Ellen Rony make a persuasive case that DNs are
>intellectual property. If I've got her right, maybe she can help me
>here.
>
>I would argue that DNs are intellectual property because as a DN holder
>I receive a kind of title to that string of characters when used in
>relation to DNS services. I choose that particular string of
>characters... a functional resource... and that string consequently
>becomes a property of my presence on the system... a property that is
>uniquely my own within the legacy root.
>
>Kerry, doesn't the use of "sympatico" by your ISP (which calls itself
>"Canada's most popular Internet online service provider..") reflect an
>attempt to associate that entity with certain intellectual and emotional
>characteristics? Isn't that name a resource of the company?
>
>>Giving them *as a class* any special representation in the DNS is to
foretell the day we get to pay for the privilege of driving on the right
side of the road (or the left, as the case may presently be - obviously
that'll be a scase for WIPO!)
>
>That statement motivated me to check out what's at
>http://www.hyperbole.com/ :-}
>
>> Seriously, by any concept of 'intellectual property,' the cybersquatters
>> are in *exactly* the same business as the TM holders: trying to
>> capitalize on the alphabet. If the net cant handle that, it would be
>> better if ICANN proclaims forthwith that all domain names will be
>> characterized in Cyrillic.
>
>
>Spasibo, no ya ne soglasen.
>
>(I've forgotten a lot of my Russian. I mean to say, "Thanks but I don't
>agree.") Kent is correct here. The TM holders are capitalizing on much
>more than the alphabet, while many cybersquatters are capitalizing on
>the work of TM holders.
>
>Remember, I don't want to rule out anyone's right to own
>whateversucks.*, and I don't think there's much point in pre-empting
>variations on *whatever* either. I'm just saying that trademark holders
>have a legitimate beef. They're particularly vulnerable to exploitation
>in this medium.
>
>I just heard an interesting story tonight about an incident in Paraguay
>in the early 90s where a bunch of local companies registered famous
>foreign brand names, and then charged the US, Japanese, and European
>companies big bucks for the names when they showed up to do business.
>Completely legal, obviously but sleazy. Paraguayan lawyers got rich from
>it. The upshot of it is apparently that Paraguay is now notorious for
>poor copyright protection, and the government has a poor record getting
>reciprocal protection for its creative people in other countries.
>Consequently Paraguayan authors have a hard time getting published
>outside the country. There's a "golden rule" sort of lesson there that
>unfortunately doesn't seem to fit for the Internet.
>
>I wish I had a positive suggestion, but I can only play critic right
>now. (It seems to me that the challenge of being a critic is learning
>how to disagree without becoming disagreeable.) So here are some
>comments on other points that have come up on this and related threads.
>
>1) I wouldn't go as far as Greg Skinner's suggestion of a waiting period
>allowing for challenges. Deciding on how to resolve challenges sounds
>like an issue that would open a big can of worms.
>
>2) Requiring a statement about the purpose of the domain name being
>registered isn't likely to help much, but it probably won't hurt, so
>there are potential gains there. On the other hand, how hard is this to
>implement? What would this involve with regard to existing
>registrations?
>
>3) The idea of the domain contacts having to provide harder name and
>location information sounds appealing to me, but I haven't seen much
>progress in determining how this can be implemented. NSI has little
>incentive to change; chaos and uncertainty means that more names will
>get registered as people engage in predatory or defensive strategies.
>
>Craig Simon
>
Esther Dyson Always make new mistakes!
chairman, EDventure Holdings
interim chairman, Internet Corp. for Assigned Names & Numbers
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