[ppml] Policy Proposal 2008-2: IPv4 Transfer Policy Proposal

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 05:40:05PM -0500, Cliff Bedore wrote:
> I just see this as a very slippery slope that once ARIN starts down, there
> will be no going back and there may be unforseen consequences of numbers
> becoming de facto property.  I.e. once IP numbers become property, who is ARIN
> to regulate it as a monopoly.  You can say it's not property but if it walks
> like a duck and quacks like a duck.....  I just see this becoming a legal
> nightmare.  It might be possible to avoid the property problem if the numbers
> have to be returned to ARIN and then redistributed but I can't see how payment
> between transferee and transferor could be made in that case.

ARIN offers a set of services.  They include reverse DNS delegation,
running a whois server, insuring uniqueness, enforcing community
rules, running ARIN meetings, and I'm sure many other things I've
forgotten.  When you're issued a number resource today it's not
property, rather you pay ARIN a fee for all of those services.
What's being transferred from one party to another is the right to
use those services.

The RSA spells this out fairly nicely, and the transfer policy was
written with the legal impacts in mind.

From a legal perspective the service is not so different from any
of thousands of other services exchanged for money every day.  A
gym membership, seat on an airline, or your home phone service.
None of these contractual relationships mean you own locker 352,
or seat 12-D, or 555-867-5309.  Some of these contracts allow you
to transfer, some do not.  The fact that I might be able to sell
the 6 months left on my gym contract to someone else does not mean
I own locker 352, or the gym, merely that the service is transferable
from one party to another.  The airline tells me if I try to sell
my seat the contract is null and void.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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