[arin-ppml] Change of Use and ARIN (was: Re: AFRINIC And The Stability Of The Internet Number Registry System)

[Mike Burns]

Hi John,

 

Yes, we’ve been through it before, but nothing I said was incorrect, and it was in refutation of the implications of your messaging to Michel. “Set in motion” is a nebulous term but I think appropriate.  

 

My point about the agreements that were used in the auction were correct and “pointed” in that regard, because the whole process (and it was ongoing for at least six months before ARIN apparently got wind of it only after the auction concluded) transpired in complete ignorance of ARIN transfer policies. Whatever you wrote below about the final agreements is not material, but we could get into the fact that the changes were basically non-functional buyer declarations and did not set any legal precedent. A discussion for another list, maybe?

 

Any transfers prior to Nortel were likely administrative or zero-cost because ARIN still had a free pool.

The first publicly costed transfer was the salient one, and it was Nortel, and ARIN was a latecomer and not a catalyst.  

 

So Michel was correct to say that particular transfer set the market in motion.

 

Regards,

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

From: John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2021 2:25 PM
To: Mike Burns <mike at iptrading.com>
Cc: ARIN-PPML List <arin-ppml at arin.net>
Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] Change of Use and ARIN (was: Re: AFRINIC And The Stability Of The Internet Number Registry System)

 

On 7 Sep 2021, at 1:46 PM, Mike Burns <mike at iptrading.com <mailto:mike at iptrading.com> > wrote:

 

>From my perspective as a bidder against Microsoft in that Nortel auction, ARIN transfer policies were completely ignored until the auction winner was announced. The proposed sale agreements we were using in our bidding disregarded any transfer policies at all. 

 

Mike - 

 

We’ve been through this before, but again – the sales agreements that you were proposed were not the agreements that were ultimately approved by the court – 

 

As initially proposed, the sale sought recognition of the IP addresses as property and did not recognize ARIN’s inherent role with respect to IP address management. ARIN intervened in the bankruptcy sale.  Microsoft and the Nortel estate ultimately voluntarily agreed to modify the transaction consistent with ARIN's right to review and approve the transaction following ARIN's established policy.  Specifically,  the parties modified the transfer agreement to be a transfer of rights and interests in the address blocks, and called for a RSA contract between ARIN and Microsoft. After ARIN’s investigation confirmed Microsoft's need for the numbers and found that the transfer complied with established policy, ARIN assented and permitted the transfer to proceed.   (Nortel Networks Inc. et al., No. 09-10138 (KG), Docket # 5253 (D. Del. Apr. 13, 2011). 

 

It's true that it was the first true public IPv4 sale, and was seminal in that regard.

 

We did many transfers before that time (i.e. 2009 and 2010) as a result of having an approved transfer policy – I do not know if any of those were “public sales” or part of “the transfer market" by your definition, but they definitely were transfers. 

 

It's a disingenuous to say that ARIN transfer policy drove the market, I think that's cart-before-the-horse revisionism. 

 

Agreed, and I would not say such…   what I pointed out to Michel is that _transfers_ were not “set in motion” by the Nortel case –  We were already doing them years earlier as it was first enabled by the adoption of the transfer policy in the ARIN region.  

 

Thanks,

/John

 

John Curran

President and CEO

American Registry for Internet Numbers

 

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