[arin-ppml] Alternative to arbitrary transfers

[Joe Maimon]

Seth Mattinen wrote:
> Leo Vegoda wrote:
>> Kevin,
>>
>> On 06/04/2009 10:15, "Kevin Kargel" <kkargel at polartel.com> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> While I wholeheartedly believe we should support transfers for reason of
>>> merger/acquisition it still holds that returned addresses need to be made
>>> available to the community and not pirated peer2peer for profit.
>>>
>>> If there were to be an IP market then ARIN should be the monopolistic
>>> broker.  Of course that is not possible while maintaining not-for-profit
>>> status.
>> Assuming that people agree to return space to ARIN without the encouragement
>> of a chunk of cash that a transfer market might bring, how should ARIN
>> decide which requests to grant and which to deny when there are more
>> requests than space available? The options I see (in no particular order)
>> are:
> 
> IP addresses aren't the property of the holder, thus they should not be
> able to sell or profit from the exchange of something that doesn't
> belong to them in the first place.
> 

IP addresses are 32 bit numbers and numbers have no owners.

The item of value is the registries grant of uniqueness, with the actual 
value determined only by the communities of users of this registry.

When ARIN says IP addresses (and all other integers) are not property, 
that is merely their opinion. When ARIN says that record of uniqueness 
does not equate to titular ownership, thats their prerogative, but has 
nothing to do with any other potential registry not bound by the same 
contracts.

If or when ARIN says that they will foster an ability for entities to 
trade and/or profit by exchanging ARIN grants of uniqueness, that is 
also ARIN's prerogative.

Imagine I operate a registry of 32 bit numbers on my web site. I make no 
representation of what they do or are good for. If communities X Y and Z 
decide that my registry will govern the use of their numbers, then it 
has value. Otherwise it does not.

That the IANA RIR record of uniqueness translates very well into network 
uniqueness is more than happy coincidence, but far less than unchanging 
law of physics.

Conduct a thought experiment of what it would take for a completely 
unrelated registry system to usurp the ones we have now.

Joe