[ppml] Securities Act 15 U.S.C. 77b(a)(1)

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

> > P.S. In case you hadn't noticed, I am not a lawyer.
> 
> Then why are you playing one on TV...I mean ppml....

Really?
Did I give you legal advice?
Did I claim to be a lawyer?

Or did I suggest that it would be a wise move to consult
expert legal advice in a specific area of law which sounds
like it may cover the buying and selling of contracts which
bear the right to use a specific IP address block. 

> I am also not a lawyer, but see nothing in the definition 
> that comes close to what I see being proposed in the transfer 
> policy update proposal.

During the discussion, others have claimed that the transfer
policy is just the first step to enabling an IP address trading
market. If such a market would attract SEC regulation, I think 
that it is a good idea to find out what are the boundaries
to ARIN policy, assuming that we do not want to give up our
industry self-regulatory regime. If legal advice from a lawyer
specializing in SEC Regulations and Title 15 Chapter 2, tells
us that there are some real limits and we are close to overstepping
them, then people might want to reject the transfer policy entirely
and take a different tack.

For instance, organizations with a surplus of IPv4 addresses could
be required to return them to ARIN, and ARIN could continue to allocate
on a needs basis with first-come first-served to decide any supply
issues.

> And, ARIN Counsel, who is a lawyer has already weighed in on 
> this in an informal way suggesting a similar opinion that the 
> SEC is unlikely to take interest.

I am assuming, that since ARIN Counsel has been retained for many
years by a non-profit organization, that said counsel's expertise
is in corporate and general law, not in the specialized area of
the SEC and financial markets. To date I have seen no indication
that ARIN has consulted with a lawyer whose area of expertise is
precisely financial markets. There has been a lot of discussion in
which several participants have suggested that the transfer policy
is the first step to enabling a market in contracts bearing the 
right of use of a specific IP address range. Like the New York Stock
Exchange or the Chicago commodities markets or NASDAQ etc, etc.
That is not ordinary corporate law since ordinary companies do
not directly participate in the financial markets, they retain
specialists (pension funds, stock brokers, banks) to do it on
their behalf.

--Michael Dillon