At 07:57 AM 2/4/99 -0500, Esther wrote:
>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!)
The tempation to bring in data-mining rights is strong ;-)
===========
{ Tamar Frankel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
{ Subject: Re: A little off topic
{
{ I am not an intellectual property maven, but will say this anyway. In
our
{ discussion "property" is not the thing itself but the legal relationship
{ relating to a thing. One of the rights of an owner of property is the right
{ to exclude others from the use of the property.
Isnt this where the land metaphor fails? Land is local and bounded - and
the extent of those bounds is public record. The rights of ownership of a
trademark likewise are bounded by the sphere of trade it pertains to.)
Otoh, a string of alphabetic characters in the DNS is global and -- so
far as it has meaning in a 'lingua franca' (lit. free speech) --
unbounded.
{ Some property rights are
{ long-term, some, like copy right and patents are for a shorteer duration.
{ Intellectual property is a broad concept including a unique song and
{ performance and a name.
Broad indeed, and its possible the DNS mess will prove its undoing.
{ The question is whether we should create a new type of property in a DN (I
{ assume beyond the propection granted today to a trade mark).
Isnt it equally 'the' question whether DNs should remain in the public
domain? Registrants pay for a unique IP address, and more power to em if
they want to make 'improvements' to it, but if DNs become property (or
names at all, as you slid into the intellectual property concept), can
such a policy avoid say, someone who mistypes a URL getting charged for
'use'? And if they look up the name in the yellow pages to be sure they
have it right, then that directory not only is (_properly) entitled to
charge for the service, but has to pay 'royalties' to the sites it lists?
{ Justifications?
{ Esther suggested creative contribution to value. We might add the cost of
{ the creation: the higher the cost the more entitled should the creator be to
{ compensation in order to give him or her incentive to continue and create.
Aren't you conflating the 'land' with the 'use of the land'? That is, the
cost of a domain name is $50/ yr, straight across, for everybody. What
that name *points to is another thing altogether.
{ There are other justifications. Question is whether they apply to DNs. There
{ are contrary arguments: The investment in name creation is usually tied to a
{ particular business. That is why we protect trade marks. Such protection is
{ also needed to protect the public against fraud (mistaking one business for
{ another).
Can 'fraud' exist if everyone is equally able to search and select for
themselves among all the Por*.* sites, say? Mistaking one *name* for
another is not the same as mistaking one *business* for another -- the
recourses for which are well established and need no emendments from
ICANN or anybody else. That is to say, protection on this level is no
different than Netnanny on another level.
Arent we back to the issue of convenience? -- market rhetoric
notwithstanding, at *some level of polity, there has to be a public
domain. Personally, I cant see how there can be one without the other: it
may be convenient for the 'property owner' to define the permissions and
restrictions, the terms and conditions, of its use -- but there wont be
anyone to permit or exclude if its not *at least as convenient* for the
passers-by to *choose to approach or avoid the boundaries of that
property. In simple terms, if we dont hold the Domain Name System as a
*public domain*, in which whois and nslookup are inalienable free rights,
then we wont have a 'continuing and creative' Internet.
kerry
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of
body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
-- Th Jefferson, 1816
