[arin-ppml] ARIN-PPML 2015-2

[John Curran]

On Jun 1, 2015, at 8:05 PM, Adam Thompson <athompso at athompso.net> wrote:
> 
> John, you've used language to obfuscate David's point, which is that ARIN does not *allow* *transfers* of IP address space between entities.

ARIN does allow transfers of address space, so long as the transfers are in accordance 
with community-developed policy.

> ARIN does set out policies that participating members must abide by,

Actually, the ARIN community develops such policies, and they are used in the
administration of all address blocks in the registry.

> but since a) we have evidence that transfer market participants exist who basically ignore ARIN entirely, 

So, this probably comes down to what you consider an “IP address block” - 
ARIN considers an IP address block to be an entry in the Internet Numbers Registry.
i.e. assigning an address block is associating an entity with one of the address blocks 
in this specific registry.  The purpose of the registry is to provide unique values, and 
Note that there have been other IP address registries which assigned the 32-bit address 
space among their own community, e.g. Automotive Network Exchange operated a 
registry which issued unique IP address blocks but distinct from the IP Numbers registry 
run by the RIR community.

It’s pretty easy to explain when one party transfers its rights to an address block entry 
in the registry to another party.   What do you think is being transferred if not the entry
in the IP numbers registry…  it’s likely not the sale of textual representation and it’s not
sale of routing rights in every ISP’s tables, so what is being transferred legally in such
cases?

> ARIN does choose to allow or disallow transfers to happen inside its policy framework, but that's not the same thing as allowing or denying the substantive transfer in the first place.

You probably need to elaborate on what is being transferred, since the address
block in the Internet numbers registry hasn’t changed, and that party retains the
ability to update or transfer the address block to other parties.  Again, what does
the “buyer” think they’ve obtained, particularly when the community that follows
the registry indicates that the transfer is not valid?

> b) these participants do engage in meaningful transfer of IP resources, 

Really?  I’ll observe that we have been seeing _hundreds_ of IP address block transfers,
and even those who object to the community-set transfer policies have been bringing in
their transfers for approval by ARIN.  We do have folks who are doing things that are not
transfers (e.g. option of future transfers, leasing) which goes on outside of ARIN, but that
is because those don’t affect the party with the permanent rights to the address block in
the registry.

> and c) ARIN has (AFAIK) no legal mandate to pursue these non-participating transferring entities, then ARIN cannot logically claim to be allowing or denying transfers.


There’s nothing to pursue, since the legal rights to the address block in the registry remain
unchanged.  If someone thinks they someone obtained such rights without doing a transfer
via the registry, they’re going to be in a very interesting situation when legally trying to pursue
the result.

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN