Reality Check : [wg-b]

["Keith Gymer (Compuserve)" <keith.gymer@btinternet.com>]

----- Original Message -----
 <mark@bitshift.org> wrote <SNIP>
>
> That's your vote, Sarah.  That it may mirror Bell Atlantic's wishes
> should carry no weight whatsoever here.  If the universe itself were
> to suddenly obtain consciousness and voice it's opinion here, it
> still only gets one unweighted vote.
>
> Please refrain from such tactics in the future, particularly when your
> affiliations were covered by the questions in the ballot.


Mr Langston's comments, gratuitous as they were, do neatly highlight the
wishful thinking and evident slender grasp of reality he and some others on
these lists appear to have, if they really believe that simply counting the
number of individual votes in the sort of straw poll that is taking place in
wg-b (and has taken place in wg-c) is significant in itself and that the
affiliation of those voting can (or should) be ignored.

The reality, whether Mr Langston likes it or not, is that if you attempt to
draw conclusions based on mere counting of votes, any alleged "consensus"
you may then claim will be a fantasy (and there's certainly a lot of that in
evidence in wg-c lately ;-).  If you maintain the delusion that the votes
cast by those representing major real-world businesses like Bell Atlantic
(which have a great deal more invested in and at stake in the internet than
individuals like Mr Langston) don't need to be given some additional weight
and consideration when you come to draw subsequent conclusions, and if you
don't look for workable solutions which accommodate the views of such
influential stakeholders, then you might as well be in cloud cuckoo land.
Dream on if you think that famous marks are not going to be protected one
way or another - if ICANN doesn't provide for a consistent, internet-wide
system to address the issue then I think you can expect to see HR3028
introduced in 101+ national varieties (in all Paris Convention and WTO/TRIPS
countries which have clear treaty obligations to protect famous marks).  I'm
not sure that would be the optimum solution for the internet.  If ICANN
makes no effort to seriously address the issue then you may well find that
other countries apply much tougher restrictions than HR3028.
Personally, whilst I  think that national legislation like HR3028 has a role
to play in setting guidelines and deciding hard cases, I think it would
actually be preferable for the internet to establish a system (probably
based on quantitative criteria which can be consistently applied
internationally) which acknowledges the reality that there are such
creatures as famous marks, which do merit some special consideration and
which makes an effort to deal with at least the obvious cases.

Keith