On Wed, Jun 30, 1999 at 06:59:32PM +0000, William X. Walsh wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 10:05:08 -0700, Kent Crispin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
[...]
> >Assuming that a restrictive and clean definition of "domain name
> >speculation" can be developed, what concrete social harm is done by
> >disallowing it totally?
>
> See this is where you have it all wrong. Policies are adopted not
> because adopting them doesn't cause concrete social harm, but because
> NOT adopting does.
>
> In other words, to ban something, you have to prove that the act
> causes concrete social harms.
TM holders have a fairly strong case that speculation causes them
harm. Nobody has denied that, and I don't think there is really
anything to prove. The question is, therefore, whether the harm to
TM holders is balanced by some good provided by speculators; or
contrarywise, is there some serious wrong done by banning
speculation.
The canonical social good provided by speculation is that it makes a
liquid market, which is in some environments considered a further
good. [Not always, though -- it's not clear that you would want a
liquid market for human body parts, for example.]
It's not clear to me that a liquid market in domain names is
particularly useful to society, but maybe someone could make that
case.
While a ban on domain name speculation would impinge on the freedom
of certain individuals to engage in certain activities, that in
itself is not an argument. The entirety of Intellectual Property
law is based on restricting the freedom of individuals to engage in
certain activities. We trade the social harm of criminalizing the
unlicensed duplication of software with the social good of
supporting software development.
These are never easy tradeoffs, and it is important to realize, I
think, that they are just tradeoffs, and are not based on moral
absolutes.
The tradeoff between the harm to TM owners and the harm to domain
name speculators is like that -- it's just a tradeoff. Society will
survive either way; there are no moral absolutes at stake.
The arguments on these lists have tended to be in terms of moral
absolutes. I would just like to back up and evaluate things in a
more pragmatic way.
> Just one more example of the CORE faction's attempt to shift burdens
> of proof from one side to another.
I would like to make something of the fact that you can't come up
with any response but yet another ad hominem, but unfortunately, all
indications are that you are incapable of producing anything but ad
hominems.
--
Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be
[EMAIL PROTECTED] lonesome." -- Mark Twain
