RE: [wg-c] Unofficial report on L.A. meeting

["Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

As Bill Lovell pointed out to me rather sharply. One does not own a
trademark. One is a trademark holder. However, the legal fact give one
rights that are tantamount to ownership, for all practical purposes.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Charles Broomfield [mailto:jbroom@manta.outremer.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 1999 1:59 PM
> To: rmeyer@mhsc.com
> Cc: cls@flywheel.com; wg-c@dnso.org; weinberg@mail.msen.com
> Subject: Re: [wg-c] Unofficial report on L.A. meeting
>
>
>
> Hi Roeland,
> 	From the way you write, it would seem that you are
> talking from a
> point of view where you consider IOD to be "owner" (in all
> practical terms)
> of .web, and that anything that gets done with .web would
> have to be done
> with full agreement from IOD. If I've got that wrong, please point out
> exactly where you stand, as I just don't get it otherwise.
>
> Against that point of view, I don't believe you can hold
> (note: HOLD, not
> just register it, but actually keep it in a meaningful
> manner) a trademark
> lock on common words with a dot in front of them (but we'll
> probably have
> more info in the upcoming IOD<->CORE shootout). But lets imagine for a
> moment that IOD *DOES* "own" .web as an abstract. Fine, ok,
> then ICANN can't
> do anything with .web without consulting with IOD. However, from there
> taking that "ownership" over 4 ASCII characters (a
> dot+"w","e","b") to mean
> that it can be forced down the throat of the ICANN
> root-servers seems to be
> going a bit far I think.
>
> If it were to be determined that IOD *does* "own" .web, then
> seeing that the
> type of gTLD that ICANN wants to run (which is where ICANN retains the
> rights), would not be compatible with IOD's .web, the result
> is that it just
> doesn't go into ICANNs root.
>
> And Roeland, seeing that you are so keen on the ownership
> matter, I can't
> see how you will deny that ICANN "owns" the root (with
> oversight from USG).
>
> Yours, John Broomfield.
>
> > > Behalf Of Craig Simon
> > > Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 1999 6:34 AM
> >
> > > 3.	What is to be done?
> > >
> > > Finally, I offered what I now call the "the principle of
> the more feasibly fixed
> > > fiasco." If and when new gTLDs are added, I believe it
> would be wiser to start
> > > with non-profit/cost-recovery gTLDs rather than proprietary gTLDs.
> > >
> > > The underlying presumption is that if either approach is
> later deemed to be
> > > mistaken, it would be easier to parcel off a non-profit
> registry (say, by
> > > auction) rather than to take the registry from a private
> owner. In short, the
> > > public resource blunder would be easier to fix than the
> proprietary blunder.
> >
> > False and FUD, a taking is difficult, if not near
> impossible, regardless of
> > the profit/nonprofit status of the organization. Where do
> y'all get the idea
> > that this is otherwise? I know that Kent floored this
> first, he's wrong and
> > no one seems to notice. If you don't own the asset, you
> can't sell it to
> > anyone else. It's called theft, whether the legal owner is profit or
> > non-profit (commercial corp or Catholic Church) you can't
> just walk in and
> > take it from them. If you could, it would apply to both
> cases evenly. The
> > only difference is that the for-profit might afford bigger
> teeth to bite you
> > with. But, relative in-defensiveness doesn't make it
> morally right. Since
> > when did we become a society of thieves?
> >
> > > The last four years of experience with NSI provides
> > > incontrovertible proof of
> > > how difficult it can be to get a powerful proprietary
> > > registry to modify its way
> > > of dealing with the Internet community.
> >
> > They are an independent entity, like you are Craig. From a slightly
> > different perspective; you own a plot of non-covenanted
> land (you own it
> > free and clear, no conditions, no zoneing, no covenants,
> and it's paid-for)
> > and you start building a house, then some schmuck decides
> that they don't
> > like your house and start demanding changes. By pure
> happanstance, you
> > happen to like some of the changes yourself and incorporate
> them. After
> > completion, you decide that you'd like to rent one of the
> extra rooms out.
> > That same schmuck decides "Oh may Gawd, we can't have that
> person generating
> > revenue from their own house! Let's take it away from them
> because that
> > would be a blight on society." Now, take that same scenario
> and pretend that
> > you are a pastor and decided to house homeless people and
> this house is in
> > one of the "high-dollar" areas of your town. Would this
> change anything?
> > Absolutely not! A taking is a taking and it is still called
> theft. That
> > asset is still theirs and it is NOT yours.
> >
> > Even in the presence of zoning ordinances and covenants,
> you still can't
> > just walk in and start selling parts of the house off
> without legal action
> > (much to the chagrin of many eco-nazis) and when that
> action is favorable
> > some compensation us ALWAYS granted to the original owner.
> In other words,
> > you ALWAYS pay for the privelege of taking that action.
> Whether the owner is
> > non-profit or for-profit is always considered irrelevant.
> This is current US
> > law and is well practiced and covered by much case law.
> >
>