[arin-ppml] Unreachable address blocks (was: Re: Have we REALLY got to this sad state of disrepair?)

[John Curran]

> On 12 Apr 2022, at 8:10 PM, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
> 
> This would be so much easier to resolve if ARIN considered IP
> addresses to be ordinary property. The law has procedures for dealing
> with apparently abandoned property, the following of which would
> insulate ARIN from risk.

Not at all, as those processes are applicable for real property and as defined for financial accounts…  
contractual rights and other intangible rights are beyond the scope of such mechanisms. 

> It seems to me that ARIN faces much the same quandary here as folks
> trying to locate copyright owners. When a book falls out of
> publication and the author can't be found, it goes into a legal limbo
> where you can't even be sure when the copyright will expire. Can't
> lawfully copy it. Or republish it. Or write a new story based on it.
> It's just stuck, fodder for the pirates.

Exactly - see above. 

> More to the point, sooner or later someone would pop out of the
> woodwork and sue you. With a muddy claim to being able to effect
> changes in policy over the legacy address block and having not
> followed any legally recognized process for reclaiming them, the
> judge's displeasure would be... substantial.

Bill -

I believe we’ve covered this ground before, but I’ll again observe that ARIN’s position is quite clear and judges seems to have no problem understanding what we mean when we explain that parties that have been issued IP address blocks by ARIN (or its predecessors) have been issued a specific set of rights to those entries in the ARIN registry, but that such rights overlap with the community’s rights – such as the community’s right to have all of the entries made public via Whois, or to set the format and fields in registry entries, to establish registry policy, etc. 

If you believe that the “address block” you were issued is a specific set of rights to an entry in the ARIN registry but that somehow ARIN’s policies don’t govern those rights, then it is _you_ who have the unenviable task of trying to prove that assertion to judge.   That’ s not going to be an easy task since you’re trying to make a claim on some rights to control database entries of a private organization – an organization with which you have no contract and that was established for the very purpose and recognized by the US Government being the successor to administer the registry.  (If you think instead that your IP address block is something altogether different that rights to an entry in the ARIN registry – but somehow that constrains ARIN’s operation of the registry – then that’s going to be an even more exciting claim to assert…)   

Hence why I said that ARIN has the authority to administer the registry in accordance with community policy, and that does include the legacy number resources.  We already have made policies in the past that affect legacy resource holders, but when the community is doing so it needs to consider its impact with care and due consideration to those affected who might otherwise be unaware. 

Best wishes,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers