The law of equity in Canada gives control of domain names to resellers if admin defaults. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2000 23:01:04 -0800 (PST) From: Coolfred Internet Services <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Transfers: A bit of an explanation I had a discussion about this issue with a friend who is an active corporate lawyer in Toronto. For me this issue has been clearly settled now after his statement. He indicated that according to law (at least in Canada), if you pay for a property, be it a domain name or even an idea for the purpose of reselling it and then your would be customer backs out on payment for whatever reason, you as the reseller are the lawful owner of that property. What OpenSRS (Or ICANN for that matter) write in a contract would not matter because their contract cannot go against the laws governing your local laws. OpenSRS or ICANN can say that Mr. X, the end user, who we don't even know is the owner. But unless in a court of law they can show that Mr. X actuallY PAID for it, they stand NO CHANCE and would have zero defense. So if you are REALLy worried about losing to an end "luser" because they back out and then OpenSRS or ICANN tells you "no it is not yours", don't be. A lawsuit in a small claims court would easily settle this. I hope things will not get to this point for any of RSPs. I for one would opt for more friendly settlements, but at the same time I advise OpenSRS to seriously reevaluate this issue (with lawyers), because from what I understood the notion of "you pay for it but the guy who clicked on the mouse owns it" will not stand in court. The ONLY time the court will give the name to the end user or even allow OpenSRS to refuse to give ownership to you (meaning the person who directly paid OpenSRS) is when OpenSRS or the end user show that THE END-USER paid for this. Fortunately for RSPs, the burden of proof lies on the end-user (or OpenSRS of they refuse a transfer of ownership to RSP) to show who paid for the domain. Simply put it: You pay for it, you own it. No contract written by OpenSRS can go against this and as my friend lawyer said, the ONLY time OpenSRS can dispute your ownership of the domain is if they directly charge a customer for the domain. I strongly suggest the governing body of OpenSRS/Tucows to look into this issue with professional lawyers, because the position taken here (not necessary the action) so far is not lawful and if a dispute occurs, the whole thing can fall apart. I for one, will continue to manually register domains for my customers (meaning I have control), until this is clearly settled. This best protects me and my legitimate customers. Farhad Sadeghi Coolfred Internet Services http://www.coolfred.net --- David Denney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On Fri, Mar 31, 2000 at 08:05:02PM -0500, Scott Allan wrote: >> There are risks to accepting credit cards, as I am sure you are aware. > >Yes there are. If somebody charges back their Internet Service >I cut them off. If they refuse to pay for what they'v used, >I send them to collections. > >> I am sure this will not be a big issue - as much as it seems to be a >> theorhetical point of contention, practically I do not see it being a real >> threat to anyone. > >If its not that big a threat, then why state emphaticly that >you would refuse to assist an ISP in protecting their interests? >There seems to be no reasoning. If _I_ paid OpenSRS for the >registration, why should some luser get to keep it when you >can do something about it? It will just result in a lawsuit. >It is quite clear that whomever PAID for the domain is the >rightful owner of it. > >> sA > >-- >David Denney | D i m e n s i o n a l C o m m u n i c a t i o n s | >[EMAIL PROTECTED] | DSL/V90/K56flex/V34/ISDN/Frame/T1/T3 starts @$12/mo | >303.285.INET voice | http://www.dimensional.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | >888.3.DIMCOM tollfree | Denver * Boulder * Longmont * Bailey * CO-Springs | > >...they can have my ssh when they pry the keyboard out of my cold, dead hands! _____________________________________________________________ Get your Free Email address at http://freemail.coolfred.org brought to you by http://www.coolfred.net
