At 09:53 PM 4/15/99 +00-04, you wrote:
>
>
>Bill,
>Looking over the trail of British, Italian, German, Australian, etc
>court verdicts, what do you understand to be the single context of
>domain name disputes?
I did not say "the" single context; I said "a" single context. If the UK
or whoever comes up with a viable solution, more power to them, and
let the ROW emulate. I'm talking US because that's where I am, and
that is the law with which I am most familiar.
(I might add, however, that the decisions of those various courts have
begun to show a remarkable consistency. The possibility thus arises
that in time there may be an international "common law" on the subject
-- that is now a "common law" comes into being -- and in such case
it will be the collective wisdom of those courts that will set the future
path of the international internet.)
>
. . . the *fact that these
>conditions are *not apparently good enough for various others (who
>therefore sue for relief as if a name is a name is a name) is the
>*problem we now have to address 'together' (if that's not too kissy-
>kissy a word ;-).
>
That "we" again being . . . ? Empowered by . . . ? Acting on behalf
of . . . ? Authorized to speak for . . . ?
>
>> The common law
>> as to what are or are not legal rights has followed a similar course.
>> All of these proposals act as though the groups advocating this or
>> that are writing on a clean slate
>
>I recall that the Kennedy and Johnson administrations were also
>criticized for `discovering' the problems of poverty, education, urban
>renewal, pollution, etc, as if they were completely new. One can of
>course conclude that they were clueless newbies, and wish
>someone had told them to RTFLegalM, where all these conditions
>have ample precedent.
Governments, and particular presidential administrations thereof, can
indeed "discover" and, through the Congress, act on certain issues.
I'm sorry I was not aware that you have the Clinton administration and
the Congress as part of your effort. The preceding sentence is not to
be taken as being as sarcastic as it sounds; I only point out that there
are those who are in positions to act with authority and lasting effect
and those who can only pretend to speak for x million people.
>
>Alternatively, one might grant them the peppercorn of good sense
>to recognize that the *problem was to *do something* about those
>conditions -- and that treating them *as if* they were new might
>mobilize the proverbially apathetic US public to respond.
Um, I'll pass on that one, except to say that the "why doesn't
somebody 'do something'" litany has been proposed in this group
for years and years now, with progress being measured in nanometers,
if not being negative. The preceding paragraph, indeed, echoes the
words I recall hearing in high school student body politics: immature,
naive, innocent, and doomed, and falling again into that last act of
desperation when other means to gain attention have failed: the
charge of apathy. (The number of student paper headlines that have
shouted "SB President Says Student Body is 'Apathetic,'" if laid end
to end, would encircle this and several other globes.)
>
>----------
>> With respect to clarity, I'm still trying to figure out what the
>> following means:
>> >>In paragraph 99 in kind of in the spirit of the document
>> >>throughout that essentially freeze court decisions and domain
>> >>name trademark conflicts in early 1997.
>> I realize that that was a transcript of a speech, with all the dangers
>> inherent therein, but the fact remains, who knows what that means?
>> (The real issue of course is not clarity but content.)
>
>I had no difficulty with it; let me help you: the document would
>freeze the state of law pertaining to IP to the determinations made
>as of 1997.
It is this which tells me that this exchange is really getting nowhere.
I suspect that WIPO has not been empowered to enact and enforce
provisions that would be binding upon the courts of every country in
the world, nor have DNRC and other U.S. alphabet soups been given
the authority to speak for the U.S. on such issues. If that simple
point is missed, it matters not what else may be said here.
>
>> Quit pretending that this or that cabal of netizens has the authority
>> to rewrite the law books on their own, and instead use the existing
>> processes of the law: look at the addendum to my NTIA remarks,
>> in which an existing mechanism is proposed to be used.
>
>> Federal District Court Judges will defer to the wisdom of a bunch
>> of unproven intermeddlers in the law? I think not.
>
>Don't you just love it when your protagonist reveals that he didnt
>read what was in front of him? (Isnt there a Latin phrase for it?)
What is it you are saying I did not read? "Once such a system
proves itself, most jurists would not take a case in contravention
of its authority?" The point I will try one last time to make is that
the "system" of which you speak has no authority and never will
have until such authority is granted in the old "of the people, by
the people, and for the people" way -- which nowadays means
that the President acts, the Congress acts, similar entities in
other countries act, there is a Bolivian or Sudanese or South
African round of the WTO (formerly GATT) so that the TRIPS
(Trade Related aspect of Intellectual Property) Agreements are
modified, enacted, adhered to, the Senate "advises and consents,"
yadda, yadda, yadda. I am all in favor of conceiving new and
more viable systems, but anyone who goes in piously saying
"let's all work together" knows nothing of politics and will most
certainly be eaten alive.
There is a malignant disease endemic withing one particular
section of this country, called Beltway Babble, and comes from
the delusion that merely by residing within spitting distance of the
seat of power, one becomes a Grand High Poobah and can thus
enact this, set up that, enforce the other, etc., etc. The disease
seems to be spreading.
Bill Lovell
