[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-174 Policies Apply to All Resources in theRegistry (William Herrin)

[Owen DeLong]

On Jun 21, 2012, at 10:15 AM, William Herrin wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 12:15 AM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
>> Yes, but the exclusive right to use is ill-defined at best. Use requires a
>> context.
> 
> Hi Owen,
> 
> I think you're seeing ambiguity where there is none but if I'm wrong a
> future case will surely clarify it. In the mean time I think it
> relatively safe to presume the scope at least includes use in networks
> touching the public Internet. Do you think the judge intended a more
> narrow scope? Is there some part of the debate which hinges on the
> judge intending a wider scope?
> 

You completely ignored half of my message, so I will endeavor to be
more clear...

As I said in the previous message. If, as you say, the judge literally intended
to issue an injunction against multiple independent network operators not
party to the case, then, I believe such a ruling would be easily invalidated
as overreaching far beyond the judges role.

I said it was ambiguous at best because it needs a much more specific
and limited definition in order to be viable in the context of the ruling, so I
was endeavoring to give the judge the benefit of the doubt and not assume
that he simply didn't understand the nature of the internet.

I agree it is very likely that his intent was as you say. However, in that case,
the facts in the real world cannot possibly reflect his ruling as there is no
meaningful way for that to be the case.

I could use the same numbers today without violating any law and since
I am not a party to the ruling in question or to any contract with Micr0$0ft
or Nortel, even by extension, I am not subject to said ruling.

There is no such thing as the exclusive right to use integers and there
is no such thing as "the public internet". Instead, these are convenient
fictions used to describe common practice among cooperating
organizations.

The theoretical exclusive right to use actually describes the informal
agreement among cooperating network operators amongst each other
and with the RIRs to use the RIR system of registries for address uniqueness
among the set of cooperating networks which exchange traffic and the more
formal agreements among the RIRs and IANA which enable the RIR system
to operate a set of registries which provide global uniqueness.

The term "the public internet" does not describe any factual single entity,
but an organism of entities made up of independent network operators who
have loosely agreed to a common set of protocols and generally cooperate
on addressing. An injunction against "the public internet" would be about
as useful as an injunction against "Santa Clause". Instead, a judge seeking
to do so would need to individually enjoin each such independent network
operator, most of whom are out of the scope of the case in question as they
were not party to the case.

So... In order for that to be viable precedent, it would have to be narrower
in scope. I can't imagine a wider scope, but even if I could, I doubt it would
be valid as even your proposed scope is not valid.

Owen