[ppml] Fw: US District Court, Oct 23rd

[Scott Leibrand]

Well put.  The other thing that this lawsuit could do (if the plaintiff 
prevails against ARIN) is put in place a precedent that IP addresses are 
property, thereby opening the door for companies to buy and sell IPs 
without regard to ARIN policies.  In the extreme, this could open the 
door wide open to market (re-)distribution of IPs, which is 
controversial to say the least.

-Scott

Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com wrote:
>> Any news on what happened? 
>>     
>
> Some have asked me personally, "What on earth are
> you talking about?". If you were at the meeting
> then you know, and if you read the transcript
> of the meeting here (scroll down to MR. RYAN)
> http://www.arin.net/meetings/minutes/ARIN_XVIII/ppm1_transcript.html#anchor_1
> then you also know.
>
> Basically, ARIN counsel stated at the meeting 
> that the lawsuit where Kremen is suing ARIN, 
> would come before Judge Ware of the US District
> Court in San Jose on Oct 23rd. This happens to
> be the same judge who earlier ruled that Kremen
> was the rightful owner of the domain sex.com.
>
> In a nutshell, Kremen is claiming that he owns some
> IP addresses and that ARIN should give them to him
> right away with no formalities, which seems to imply
> that he doesn't have to comply with any of ARIN's
> policies and procedures. For instance, he has refused
> to sign a registration services agreement.
>
> The results of this are important, because it could
> undermine ARIN's fundamental democratic nature and
> serve as a precedent for US government regulation of
> stuff like ARIN does. After all, if a court can simply
> set aside ARIN's open processes and democratically-made 
> decisions in favor of someone who can afford to launch
> a lawsuit, then all of us are in a rather unstable
> position regarding our right to use the IP addresses
> that we have been allocated. It also raises doubts about
> an ISPs ability to withdraw assigned addresses when a
> customer ceases to be connected to their network.
> If ARIN's right to run things our own way is not
> recognized by the courts then the only way I can see
> to fix that is via new legislation which could well 
> lead to regulation.
>
> This is darned important stuff and I wish that someone
> was following it in the way that groklaw.net follows
> the SCO-IBM dispute.
>
> --Michael Dillon
>
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