[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-171 Section 8.4 Modifications: ASN and legacy resources

[William Herrin]

On 6/8/12, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> On Jun 8, 2012, at 5:49 PM, William Herrin wrote:
>> So... can you cite a specific case in which the addresses were sold
>> for less money to "other qualified recipients" because ARIN nixed the
>> one with the higher offer?
>>
> What does it matter? If they found alternate buyers at the same or higher
> price in order to qualify under ARIN policy, I think that's what matters.

Hi Owen,

What does it matter? Good question. The answer is this: the courts
have repeatedly treated legacy IP addresses as a salable asset. Not
property. Salable assets. Belonging to the registrant. Not property.
Assets. Like any other intangible that belongs to the registrant. His.
That's now well established legal precedent.

With repeated opportunity, ARIN has not once challenged it. They've
limited their claim to 1) not property, and 2) right to approve
transfer recipients. And they've not really tried to sail against the
wind on those limited claims.

ARIN isn't going to take away legacy addresses for declining to sign a
contract. Even it we passed a policy saying to. Not gonna happen.
Wouldn't be legal. Not against the weight of precedent. So let's all
stop pretending it conceivably could happen.

Our choices are threefold:

1. Status quo. Let IPv6 put an end to the issue.

2. Reach out to the legacy registrants with fair or better value for
what they lose by normalizing relations via the LRSA.

3. Change the LRSA to a database-services only contract. ARIN gains no
interest in the numbers and gives up no rights it otherwise has.
Registrant pays to have their existing data in whois and rdns and is
guaranteed of it so long as they keep paying and don't change.

And that's about it.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
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