[arin-ppml] simple question about money

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net 
> [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of Milton L Mueller
> Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 11:54 AM
> To: Tom Vest
> Cc: ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] simple question about money
> 
> 
>  
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Tom Vest [mailto:tvest at pch.net]
> > The Chinese privatization was short-lived, and when the 
> authorities  
> > decided they didn't like the results they re-nationalized
> > the "flagship" private/competitive carrier and turned it into the  
> > telco for the northern provinces.
> 
> There was never any "privatization" in China, nor any 
> re-nationalization. China has always maintained state 
> ownership of all telecom sector entities. There was some 
> corporatization of telecom operations of government agencies 
> (the railroads, ministry of electronics, PLA, etc.) and some 
> managed competition among them. At a very local and 
> small-scale level, there was "bootleg" privatization of radio 
> resources by entrepreneurial military units to run paging 
> services, but that was reined in. Still, the Peoples 
> Liberation Army is still probably a big player in telecom. 
> The main reason privatization doesn't take place, as you 
> know, is so that the state can maintain top-down control of 
> communications as much as is possible.
> 
> > If things turn out to be other that the transfer enthusiasts wish,
> > there will no return path for address resources -- or at 
> least none  
> > involving "self-governance" as it currently exists.
> 
> Huh? First, a transfer policy can simply be stopped. The 
> policy is repealed, as of X date. Then there are no more 
> (authorized) transfers; i.e. no more than there would be if 
> there were no policy at all and the RIRs continue to bury 
> their heads in the sand. Second, if indeed there is v6 take 
> up and the whole scheme is transitional as intended, then the 
> commies have their paradise in the v6 space and can continue 
> to serve as God-like central planners judging others' needs there. 
> 
> > "Diehard communists" are not the only kind of people that raise
> > concerns about embarking on far-reaching privatization 
> plans without  
> > adequate forethought.
> 
> The frame of "privatization" is the wrong one to draw around 
> the IP address transfer proposals. Privatization means 
> conferring a legal right of ownership to the address block 
> assignee. A right to transfer the address from one user to 
> another using ARIN as an intermediary does not imply legal ownership.
> 

If done right it may not - BUT what it does do is throw the
entire issue of control over address assignment to the national
legal system of the country that the parties are in.

Party A and Party B are in the US.  The US has no law on ownership
of IP addresses.  Party A and party B sign a legal contract to
transfer registration of IP addresses between each other.  ARIN
comes along and says "party A has not met utilization requirements
and thus the transfer isn't allowed"

It would seem that party A and B both would immediately file a
lawsuit against ARIN alleging interference in a contract.  ARIN has
no law backing it's control over the IP addresses so the whole
thing goes to a US court to sort out.

This type of thing has -already- happened.  What was done is the
issue was punted on jurisdictional issues since one party was
not in the US, so ARIN argued US laws didn't apply and the court
threw out the case, and both parties ended up being forced to 
deal with ARIN anyway.  Also, since the case was an acquisition
not a transfer, and ARIN already has rules that cover that, the
court observed that one party had been subject to their contract
with ARIN which dictated that they had to work with ARIN.

If we allow transfers then we merely open the door for one of
these cases to be tried in a US court which will then begin the
process of creating case law and legal precedent that will ultimately
end up ceeding control of address assignment to the US, within
the US.  Then it's only a matter of time before other countries
get into the act and now we have a legal morass of different
laws regarding IP addressing assignments in different countries.

IP addressing is a global issue and the legal framework for
anything like IPv4 transferring belongs in the World Court so
it is the same for all countries, all RIRs.

But if you look at the rest of the world, they have more interest
in IPv6 than in IPv4.  The US really is the one that has the
most interest in IPv4 because it's been on the Internet longer.
The US really needs to get with the program and not try imposing
this dependence on IPv4 on the rest of the world.

Ted