[arin-ppml] Fw: Microsoft receives court approval for transfer asagreed with ARIN

[Mike Burns]

> If ARIN wants to change policy, may I suggest removing the justification 
> requirements for ALL transfers, legacy and non-legacy?
>
> This would have the effect of removing the disincentive of legacy holders 
> to sign an LRSA, would align ARIN with APNIC policy in advance of a global 
> transfer policy, and would prevent ARIN from having to fudge a needs 
> analysis in order to comply with policy, as I firmly believe happened with 
> MS/Nortel.
>
> It would also increase whois reliability, as those who currently hold ip 
> address space as the result of prior transfers could be fearless in 
> approaching ARIN to have these transfers reflected accurately in whois.
>
> And those with addresses under RSA would not be afraid to sell their 
> unused addresses through STS. Currently there is the fear that ARIN can 
> audit the organization and take back unused addresses, so only those who 
> can plausibly deny their lack of need feel brave enough to advertise to 
> ARIN that they are not using their entire allocation.
>
> This discussion will no doubt mirror those of the past, and may expose 
> some emotional response from prior participants, but I ask those 
> participants to evaluate their current positions in the face of current 
> realities.
>
> Reality shows that legacy holders have the right to transfer and sell 
> address space without ARIN approval. Evidence of that fact is that the 
> addresses Nortel sold were not originally registered to them, they were 
> the possessions of Nortel's "predecessors in interest", bankruptcy 
> parlance for Nortels prior acquisitions, who where the original legacy 
> registrants. The court held that Nortel had the exclusive right to 
> transfer the addresses. How did they get that right, unless upon 
> acquisition, Nortel and the acquired company processed an 8.2 transfer? 
> Can anybody point me to the existence of a relevant 8.2 transfer processed 
> for Nortel?
>
> Reality today also includes the fact that the IPv6 transition failed, we 
> have reached the IPv4 exhaust point without the option for an orderly 
> transition, and other stakeholder communities like APNIC have decided that 
> the best stewardship role going forward is to allow IPv4 addresses to be 
> bought and sold without a justification restriction.
>
> With or without the Global Transfer Policy, this will be a worldwide 
> market, and addresses will flow to where market restrictions are fewest. I 
> noted this community's angst when the subject of returning addresses came 
> up, and the proposal was to send them out of the region, back to IANA. 
> Don't you think the same effect will happen when the world compares the 
> markets for IPv4 transfers? Addresses will flow to Asia, unless we change 
> ARIN policies.
>
> ARIN's policies are impediments to good stewardship, preventing the open 
> sales of IP address space and leaving unused address space on the 
> sidelines that would otherwise be put to use. Paradoxically, ARIN's 
> attempts at stewardship in the form of justification requirements serve to 
> restrict the efficient use of these limited resources. What may have been 
> appropriate in a time before exhaust, and before the legal precedents set 
> in the MS/Nortel deal, is no longer appropriate.
>
> It's not so bad, free markets are designed to use scarce resources most 
> efficiently, and freedom from regulation has been a major driver in the 
> growth of the Internet. The market will be the best steward now, and 
> ARIN's role should be the title agency whose overarching goal is to 
> maintain accuracy in whois and uniqueness of registration.
>
>
> And as a point of clarification, can a legacy holder who is not a member 
> of ARIN, but who is registered with the PPML post in support of a 
> proposal, or not?
> If so, consider this a post in support of ALL of Benson's proposals.
>
> Regards,
> Mike Burns
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michel Py" <michel at arneill-py.sacramento.ca.us>
> To: "John Curran" <jcurran at arin.net>
> Cc: <ppml at arin.net>
> Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 2:27 AM
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] Microsoft receives court approval for transfer 
> asagreed with ARIN
>
>
>> John,
>>
>>> If more than a handful actually feel that way to the point of
>>> participating, then the policies are easily enough to change.
>>> We have even made it so that remote participants in the Public
>>> Policy meetings can readily ask questions and be counted in
>>> the show of support for a given draft policy.
>>
>> Based on what data? You're taking the problem backwards. There is a
>> widespread feeling that the non-public agreement between ARIN and
>> Microsoft has some issues with the current policies. It is clear that
>> the parties did not feel the need to talk to ARIN before the deal was
>> done. How do you expect someone to write a draft policy based on
>> suspicion, not on facts?
>>
>> A precedent has been created. A court of law has ruled that legacy
>> prefixes were sellable assets (at least, in a bankruptcy context).
>> Unless ARIN plans to appeal the ruling (seems difficult to me), it is
>> necessary to implement new policies that take the new reality into
>> account. Part of designing these new policies requires a better
>> understanding of the problems that the current policies posed to the
>> current situation, which in turn requires a better understanding of what
>> legacy holders are willing to negotiate in return of staying within the
>> ARIN framework and what will trigger them to bypass ARIN.
>>
>> Unless some details are provided, I predict that no significant change
>> to policies will be made in time for the next large, public trade
>> occurs, which will put you in the hot seat again and that time you won't
>> be able to say that you did not see it coming.
>>
>> Michel.
>>
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>