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

[Paul Vixie]

On 2012-06-10 3:26 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Paul Vixie [mailto:paul at redbarn.org]
>> 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.

no sir, it is not directly parallel. community assigned holdership takes
the place of securities law in your example. therefore the ability and
methods of resource trading are a matter to be determined by the same
community who would decide whether to recognize those trades.

> [Milton L Mueller] ... 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 agree with this statement, because many of those legacy holders have
participated in the policy development process which led to NRPM 8.3
"Transfers to Specified Recipients". more than a few legacy holders have
signed the LRSA as well. i am aware of no disenfranchised subcommunity
of network operators who hold legacy resources and who cannot or have
not aired their views in the public policy development process.

>> 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? 

i've been told by several operators that they are aware of or engaging
in underground optioning of rights, in order to lay in a long term
supply of growth capacity for their ipv4 networks. each of them plans to
execute NRPM 8.3 trades when they can justify each tranche they have
options on. none of them has told me that they need a new registry
without ARIN's "needs basis" in order to run their businesses. if so,
this would be outside the sphere of ARIN policy and would not in any way
alter the nature of ip numbering resources as "not property".

if you're aware of "trades" which are not futures or options, and which
reflect the extant desire of some operators to put into active use
address resources whose need they cannot currently justify, i'm all
ears, please regale me.

>> 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. 

if any network operator within the sound of my voice sees a need to
"propertize" ip address resources beyond what's allowed by NRPM 8.3 and
what's apparently being done off-books with options on future
needs-based trades, i would very much appreciate an education from you,
which i'll accept under NDA if you ask for that. at this moment the only
people i know of who want what dr. mueller is calling "propertization"
are speculators, not operators. but: the community whose consensus
created the IPv4 (in RFC 791) and IPv6 (in RFC 1883) address space does
not recognize the rights of speculators, only operators.

paul