[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-172 Additional definition for NRPM Section 2 - Legacy Resources

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Vixie [mailto:paul at redbarn.org]
> 
> thanks. i had not seen that. you appear to be arguing that i have a
> conflict of interest since i'm a trustee at arin, and your article
> implies that my arguments should not be taken at face value because

[Milton L Mueller] we can set that issue aside. It's a distraction at this point.

> > We have thousands of stock brokers and dozens of exchanges
> > independently trading shares, but somehow the world manages to keep
> > track of who does and does not own a specific quantity of critically
> > important stock certificates. So ARIN does not need to control,
> > mediate and set policy for all IP address transfers in order to
> > maintain an accurate database of who holds which address block.
> 
> this... is a complete nonsequitur. first, your comparison of ip
> addresses to stock certificates on the basis of their uniqueness fails
> to address the fact that shares of stock are understood in law as a kind
> of property, and are issued by corporations under securities law that

[Milton L Mueller] You missed the target. The ability of thousands of stock brokers and multiple exchanges to keep track of who is assigned a distinct set of shares actually has nothing to do with whether the asset in question is legally considered property or not. It's simply a matter of how one manages shared databases with unique numbers in them (in this case, CUSIP numbers http://www.sec.gov/answers/cusip.htm ) And that is directly parallel to keeping track of ownership - or community assigned holdership, if you prefer - of IP address blocks.

> "so arin does not need..." brings us back to that pig again, which could
> fly, but only if it had wings, which it does not, so, it cannot.

[Milton L Mueller] oink. who you callin' a pig? ;-) 
 
> i think we may have a breakthrough here. you care very deeply about the
> self-interest of both sides of a transaction, and as an unremitting
> anarcho-libertarian myself, i deeply resonate to that view. however, we
> are not talking about a share of stock, or a fungible currency unit, or
> a parcel of land, or an internet domain name here. the exclusive right
> to the use of a unique identifier on the internet is not a land grant.
> there is a third party at the table, which is not contemplated by the
> austrian or chicago schools of economics: the community, who created the
> numbering systems, and who operates the routers, has a say about who can
> hold what rights, and how those rights can be transferred.

[Milton L Mueller] The Austrian and Chicago schools have quite a lot to say about "the community" or various other labels of collective control of resources, you should look into it some time. By the way, some of the people who operate routers are legacy holders and seem quite interested in maintaining their rights to trade the asset and to benefit from its use. 

> i think you "simply" need to stop thinking about ip addresses as assets
> having titles which can be traded, and focus your energies on studying

[Milton L Mueller] but they _can_ be traded, and _are_ being traded. And RSAs and Whois registrations are nothing if not "titles." Is this dialogue moving backwards to 2005? 

> note that if
> ip addresses were property, then the authors of RFC 791 and RFC 1883
> would have had an extraordinary capital gains tax bill.

[Milton L Mueller] Propertization is a process, not a static quality. Under certain social conditions (e.g., internet addresses in 1983, or most North American land in 1432), there is no need for resources to be propertized; under tighter, more scarce conditions, there is. Many, many resources in history are open and unrestricted common pools, and then become divided into property parcels and allocated by the market.