[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-133: No Volunteer Services on Behalf of Unaffiliated Address Blocks

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

On 2/17/2011 8:28 AM, Warren Johnson wrote:
>
>>
>> Ever hear of ex post facto?  It's unconstutional in the US.
>>
>
> If the ARIN community says tomorrow that all legacy holdings must be
> returned that is not violating ex post facto.  If they started saying
> that the use of those assignments for the last 15 years was illegal 15
> years ago then yes, that WOULD be ex post facto.
>
>
>
>
> =====================
> Agreed, but that doesn't prevent the ensuing litigation.
> =====================
>
>
>>>
>>> And in fact, we HAVE done this.  We have done it by setting up a
>>> system to make legacy IPv4 obsolete.
>>>
>>
>> We don't go around seizing buggy whips.  Making it obsolete does
>> not deprive holders of the right to use it as they see fit.
>>
>
> This greatly stretches the definition of "use" IMHO.
>
> If the rest of the world is no longer using IPv4 then any IPv4 holdings
> that you have become impossible to use, unless your goal is to run an
> antique computer museum or something like that which is not connected to
> the rest of the world.
>
>
> =====================
> It seems to me that your posts have this tone implying that v4 demand will
> dwindle significantly in the next year or two.  Maybe I'm wrong but it seems
> like there's
> 4 billion addresses currently out there (who knows how many being used) and
> a multi-million monthly demand (that will soon be shut off).  Really?  Some
> legacy block's IPs are going to be worthless that fast?
> =====================
>

I think you will be surprised.  I have posted before that I believe that
once the major networks - like the mobile phone networks - switch over 
to IPv6 (and they will HAVE to do so - their addressing consumption is 
so great that there is no other answer) that huge chunks of IPv4 that 
they are currently using will be thrown onto the transfer market.

When a network like Verizon Mobile and ATT Mobile and so on decides to 
switch to IPv6 they can switch their entire network over very fast. 
Think of how many times the average person drops their cell phone down 
the crapper or otherwise destroys it and replaces it.  Those networks 
probably can cycle all existing phones out of service within 5 years if 
they really wanted to.

And once they dump their old IPv4 it floods the transfer market, killing 
speculation.  Speculators who thought they would make money in the 
transfer market get discouraged and abandon it.  And once IPv4 is 
PERCEIVED as old hat, it will die quickly.

Do not underestimate the power of obsolete technology perception, or 
suffer your Betamax father's fate you will!

>
> How long does patent law allow an inventor in the US to continue to
> profit from his invention?  How long would it be reasonable to allow the
> legacy IP holders to profit from being first in the boat?  Do you
> seriously think that legacy addresses would be allowed to be handed down
> from father to son forever?  When your dead of old age then would the
> argument that your son "spent a lot of money helping with the formation
> of the Internet and in exchange for doing that he gets a free IP
> assignment" have any moral validity?  Because, that is the primary moral
> validation for allowing legacy holders to not help underwrite the costs
> of address assignment maintaining.
>
> =====================
> I think patents are a hundred years? Is that right?  I'm not sure where you
> get the idea that people who managed to "be there when it was free" and then
> profit for centuries from that doesn't happen.

That can happen with property and IP addresses are not property.

Profiting from being first
> in the boat, as you say, is common.  Anyone who's family managed to grab up
> land on uninhabited areas of Manhattan island are not stripped of that land
> just because it's not fair to people now.
>

Of course they are.  All they have to do is stop paying their property 
taxes and that's the end of it.  You cannot own land almost anywhere 
unless you have income to maintain your ownership over it.

> I think legacy groups would be more than happy to pay fees each year.  The
> point of contention is no doubt the fact that they hold a large swath of
> valuable property

IP addresses aren't property.

and right now they have no contractual limitations on its
> use and would like to keep it that way.

Actually yes they do - if they want MORE of it, they have to abide by 
utilization requirements that count their existing addressing.

Ted

Provide an LSRA that providers for
> a payment structure, and that's about it, and you'd probably get people
> signing it.
> =====================