Re: [wg-c] registry contracts

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Sat, Nov 20, 1999 at 06:54:59PM -0500, Eric Brunner wrote:
[...]
> Have we correctly assumed an undercapitalized (in the sense of names,
> regardless of their valuation(s) possible) registry model, or should
> we assume that every NewRegOpCo starts with a capital-in-marks of
> some 10^^5 or 10^^6th names, valorized opportunistically?
> 
> To simplify matters, can we work on bulk deals? Who currently factors
> in this form of receivable?
> 
> If most of this isn't garbage, I gather I'm about a year late in getting
> to the obvious reason why the Intellectual Property Constituency of the
> DNSO has such a concern over the expansion of the TLD-space.

And the concern over a "famous marks" exclusion...

The issue also carries some emotional weight: it's not just the money.
As Bob Connelly noted, it is still the case that these fees are
chump change for large companies, and they remain chump change even if 
the prices for large TM owners are an order of magnitude or two larger 
than they would be for "general registrants".  

But many people find it emotionally difficult to give in to
extortion, however small the scale -- for large TM holders, the
practical reality is that every new gTLD is an automatic, required
expense, a tax they must pay for no benefit. 

It is simple enough to write registry contracts with price controls
in them, which would prevent the obvious price gouging you mention. 
But proponents of contractural controls ignore the creativity of
capitalists with an exploitable weakness in their gunsights. 
Entrepreneurs already offer special services that will register your
name in many TLDs.  These special services are only meaningful for
large TM holders, of course.  One can certainly expect many more
"special services" for TM owners, in a world where a hord of
unfettered gTLD registry/registrar owners are out there creatively 
competing for market share.

Proponents of competitive registries extol the creativity of
entrepreneurs when it comes to new services etc, but conveniently
forget the creativity of entrepreneurs when it comes to evading
contractural restrictions.  [Incidentally, recall that my proposal
for multiple registries is not based on any advantages from
competition, but rather is based on the operational need for
redundancy.]

It may be true that there is an utopian end point somewhere upwards
of 500 or 1000 gTLDs where all this is no longer an issue, somehow --
a point where TM owners give up defending their marks at the SLD
level, as they essentially do now at the 3LD level.  But reaching
that glorious equilibrium point (which may indeed be at a more
desireable lower energy level than our current state) still requires
climbing a difficult hill of expense and legal and political battles
to make the transition. 

What we are discussing here is just another form of lock-in, where TM
owners are forced, through anti-dilution statutes among other things,
to register many more names than they need.  That is, there is a
structural character of the market that forces TM owners to plunk 
down their cash every time a new gTLD comes on line.

I have had no access to hard data, but anectdotes suggest that names
like "microsoft.xxx" were the most common names pre-registered in the
CORE TLDs. 

Kent

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain