[arin-ppml] Microsoft receives court approval for transfer asagreed with ARIN

[Owen DeLong]

On Apr 28, 2011, at 2:40 PM, Scott Leibrand wrote:

> On Apr 28, 2011, at 2:32 PM, "Mike Burns" <mike at sum.net> wrote:
> 
>> If ARIN wants to change policy, may I suggest removing the justification requirements for ALL transfers, legacy and non-legacy?
>> 
>> This would have the effect of removing the disincentive of legacy holders to sign an LRSA, would align ARIN with APNIC policy in advance of a global transfer policy, and would prevent ARIN from having to fudge a needs analysis in order to comply with policy, as I firmly believe happened with MS/Nortel.
>> 
>> It would also increase whois reliability, as those who currently hold ip address space as the result of prior transfers could be fearless in approaching ARIN to have these transfers reflected accurately in whois.
>> 
>> And those with addresses under RSA would not be afraid to sell their unused addresses through STS. Currently there is the fear that ARIN can audit the organization and take back unused addresses, so only those who can plausibly deny their lack of need feel brave enough to advertise to ARIN that they are not using their entire allocation.
>> 
>> This discussion will no doubt mirror those of the past, and may expose some emotional response from prior participants, but I ask those participants to evaluate their current positions in the face of current realities.
>> 
>> Reality shows that legacy holders have the right to transfer and sell address space without ARIN approval. Evidence of that fact is that the addresses Nortel sold were not originally registered to them, they were the possessions of Nortel's "predecessors in interest", bankruptcy parlance for Nortels prior acquisitions, who where the original legacy registrants. The court held that Nortel had the exclusive right to transfer the addresses. How did they get that right, unless upon acquisition, Nortel and the acquired company processed an 8.2 transfer?  Can anybody point me to the existence of a relevant 8.2 transfer processed for Nortel?
>> 
>> Reality today also includes the fact that the IPv6 transition failed, we have reached the IPv4 exhaust point without the option for an orderly transition, and other stakeholder communities like APNIC have decided that the best stewardship role going forward is to allow IPv4 addresses to be bought and sold without a justification restriction.
>> 
>> With or without the Global Transfer Policy, this will be a worldwide market, and addresses will flow to where market restrictions are fewest. I noted this community's angst when the subject of returning addresses came up, and the proposal was to send them out of the region, back to IANA.  Don't you think the same effect will happen when the world compares the markets for IPv4 transfers? Addresses will flow to Asia, unless we change ARIN policies.
>> 
>> ARIN's policies are impediments to good stewardship, preventing the open sales of IP address space and leaving unused address space on the sidelines that would otherwise be put to use. Paradoxically, ARIN's attempts at stewardship in the form of justification requirements serve to restrict the efficient use of these limited resources. What may have been appropriate in a time before exhaust, and before the legal precedents set in the MS/Nortel deal, is no longer appropriate.
>> 
>> It's not so bad, free markets are designed to use scarce resources most efficiently, and freedom from regulation has been a major driver in the growth of the Internet. The market will be the best steward now, and ARIN's role should be the title agency whose overarching goal is to maintain accuracy in whois and uniqueness of registration.
> 
> Thanks for the feedback.  I think you're advocating moving
> further/faster than most people in the ARIN community want to right
> now, but it does seem there is support for relaxing some restrictions.
> I hope you'll stay tuned for more discussion of that after discussion
> of the current slate of draft policies dies down a bit, and continue
> contributing to those discussions.
> 
I would support increasing the restrictions or abandoning the transfer
policy.

I would not support reducing the restrictions.

Owen