[arin-ppml] ARIN-PPML Digest, Vol 106, Issue 8 (Sandra Brown)

[John Curran]

PPML community - 

Without speaking for or against any given policy proposal, it is 
necessary to respond to several of Sandra's remarks as they do not 
reflect the actual structure of the Internet Number Registry System....

On Apr 6, 2014, at 11:49 AM, sandrabrown at ipv4marketgroup.com wrote:
> It they do not approach ARIN, and they keep their assumed property
> rights, they hope in the future, for the benefit of being able to do
> whatever they want with their IP's, 
> ...

To the extent that the community feels that registry policy should be
applicable in general to the management of address blocks in the region,
then the rights afforded to address holders must definitely be a subset 
of what most folks would consider "property rights."  In particular, 
to the extent that it is desirable to have community-developed policy 
applicable to the _administration_ of IPv4 address space rather than 
simply to the _assignment_ of address space is a question worthy of 
discussion given the imminent depletion of the regional IPv4 free pool), 
but absent any change in direction, ARIN must hold to the position set 
at its establishment and its in foundational documents that all address 
space in the registry is subject to community-develop number resource 
policy.

> Perhaps at some point some party with more at stake, will force the
> property right issue in court,


That actually could be quite beneficial, as would help in providing
further certainty regarding the ability of ARIN to maintain the registry
per the wishes and policies developed by the community.  Parties without
any agreement with ARIN asserting rights against particular entries in 
the registry have a rather interesting task before them, however, so it 
may take some time before this particular event occurs...

ARIN is part of a Internet number registry system which includes the IANA 
and the other regional registries; we collectively administer one registry 
of address space with each block associated with a single address holder, 
i.e. each block is globally unique; one important aspect of this is that 
an address block within a given regional registry remains within that 
registry unless there is a mutual agreement that it is administered by 
another RIR.  Parties that undertake transfers would be well-advised to 
read the policy documents of the Regional Internet registries which 
reflect these same principles.

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN