Enok Kippersund wrote: > Kerry (wasn't it?): > Being human is *already* an intersubjective idea or concept, > *despite* the fact that one carries the evidence around everywhere > one goes. It follows that everything one does beyond that > references only references, because the 'everything' that is worth > talking about involves other humans. Yes, but what saves us from hopeless solipsism is the notion of coherent trust -- where trust (in the subjective sense) is that which I rely upon to make decisions [1]. But, trust supports reality in two different modes. 1. A "wall" is what one could call a coherent perceptive reality or "objective objectivity" [2]. It is based on trust which is perceptually coherent in a large collective. Of course, I may perceive a wall quite differently if I only use X-Ray cameras or only use TV cameras, so that I would (even with a very large number of cameras) also describe different perceptual realities. 2. Market value, stock-exchange indexes, law, trademarks, etc. are a coherent conceptual reality, or "subjective objectivity" [2]. If trust is conceptually coherent in a large collective, as once people trusted that the Sun went around the Earth, then it is truth to that collective, and therefore a reality -- so that anyone trying to say otherwise (as Galileo) will not even be heard. With full confidence, we will say "he is obviously wrong, reality is not like that" to anyone that tries to contradict what we so collectively trust in our conceptions.. Further, both modes of reality are "out there" in the sense that they depend on something which has nothing to do with the observer (ie, you). However, the observer is not isolated from *either* reality mode and interacts with them in two ways: (i) what the observer perceives, depends also on the observer and not only on the observed reality (so, there is no such a thing as a neutral reality); (ii) what the observed reality is to other observers, may also depend on the observer (so, there is no such a thing as a neutral observer). These two mechanisms of observer-observed interaction are in feedback by forward-looking and backward-looking trust chains [1], a phenomenum which Soros has observed in relationship to stock-markets (which he called "reflexity", an obvious mismomer). Which brings us to the Internet DNS issue -- the DNS is an intersubjective name system which is not objective, by protocol [3]. So, since trademarks exist in an objective name system (see above and [3]) but may also be intersubjective (ie, outside of their jurisdiction or class) we really do not have a conflict between both systems -- as WIPO misleadingly postulated [3], to the effect that there is no conflict between tradermarks and DNS names -- they are simply designations in different name spaces. Since DNS names are intersubjective and never objective, while trademarks are objective and may also be intersubjective, all objective conflicts such as those in the legal trademark domain can be solved in that domain with the existing laws. There is no need to further legislate (as in WIPO's RFC3 attempt) and then run the risk of vacating otherwise valid laws -- as recent rulings declared those existing laws already effective to resolve Internet DNS issues. Quite on the contrary, if DNS names were objective then we would have a real conflict -- as it exists in international commerce between equally objective legal provisions, valid though in each other's jursidictions. As I commented elsewhere however, failure to understand the necessary and unquestionable local subservience of Internet DNS names to objective rules such as trademark law is IMO at the base of this "War of the Worlds" -- which however, plays out entirely in people's minds. To provide some examples, I will inline some comments from Nicholas Bohm (cited above), in an off-line discussion. The existence of the Internet's system of domain names does not (and should not) legitimise what would otherwise amount to trade mark infringement. So the fact that I have been registered as the owner of the domain ford.com does not free me from enforcement by the Ford Motor Company of its trade mark rights, if I use the word "Ford" (as part of the domain name or otherwise) as a trade mark for goods or services for which its use is reserved to the Ford Motor Company in some jurisdiction. But equally, I remain free to make uses of the word "Ford" which do not infringe those rights. Such uses may not be uses as a trade mark at all: I may call my cat "Ford", or my house, or indeed myself. Or, there may be trademark uses for goods or services where the Ford Motor Company has no rights (I do not know of any particular examples which fit the facts, but I can imagine that use for foodstuffs or medicines might be free of the rights of the Ford Motor Company). So far as this goes, the Internet has done no more than introduce a new possibility for useful non trademarked uses of names. One difficulty it has added is the difficulty of using existing legal rules to decide where a use has taken place, and thus which courts can assert jurisdiction to prohibit a particular use. Just to take a particular example, if a UK resident who owns no assets outside the UK sets up a website on a UK server, a US court might assert jurisdiction to restrain (and award damages for) an infringement of a US trademark through the display of pages from that site over the internet to a US resident, the US court treating the infringement as taking place where the page is displayed. But the orders of the US court might be ineffectual, because the UK courts might not accept the legitimacy of the US court's assertion of jurisdiction on that basis, and US court judgments are not automatically enforceable in the UK. There is no quick and easy solution to this problem. International agreements can help, but take time to achieve. In the meantime, my personal view is that we should preserve the Internet as a new medium -- and not iron out its new challenges in order to make it conform to old media, nothwithstanding the challenges and problems we currently face. Again, this is the Internet -- unless we take in relative perspective those unsucessful threats which, it is not presumed, would abuse rights or terrify ordinary persons excessively (and, as already said in 1886 [4], there is so much opportunity for magnifying or misunderstanding undefined menaces that probably as much mischief would be caused by letting them be prosecuted as by refraining from it), we run the danger of sacrificing privacy and citzenship rights for the sake of security of trademark owners for example. Not a good deal, as privacy and citzen's rights are long term assets and, once lost are usually lost for life -- while security is a short term goal, even for trademarks. Cheers, Ed Gerck ================== REFERENCES: [1] Ed Gerck, "Towards Real-World Models of Trust: Reliance on Received Information", at http://www.mcg.org.br/trustdef.htm [2] http://mcg.org.br/cgi-bin/lwg-mcg/TRUST-REF/archives/ref/date/article-193.html [3] Ed Gerck, "Arguments for Recalling WIPO RFC3 and Proposal for DNS/TM Resolution", April 1999, FirstMonday at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_4/gerck/, [4] In The People v. B. F. Jones, 62 Mich. 304 (1886), cited by Judge Avern Cohn in an Internet case, reference http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/safe/cases/umich-baker-story/baker_opinion.html we can read: "It is not the policy of the law to punish those unsuccessful threats which it is not presumed would terrify ordinary persons excessively; and there is so much opportunity for magnifying or misunderstanding undefined menaces that probably as much mischief would be caused by letting them be prosecuted as by refraining from it."
