RE: [wg-review] 11. IDNH Vote now - all those in favor

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

> From: Sotiropoulos [mailto:sotiris@hermesnetwork.com]
> Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 10:58 AM
> 
> 1/13/01 10:46:08 AM, Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com> wrote:
> 
> >That was established, in law, a long time ago. Look at 
> Copyright law, Patent
> >law, and Trademark law. There is no such thing as publically-owned
> >information. 
> 
> In other words, what you are saying is that Domain Names DO 
> constitute property then, and are not simply a service...?

If you'd been paying attention, that is *exactly* what I've been saying all
along.
see http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-review/Arc02/msg01061.html
That argument is consistent with what I've just said.

> >Now, before you get too excited, realise that Crispin and
> >myself have been opponents for a long time now. Yet, this is 
> one of the very
> >few things we agree on. This is why those whom have the most 
> freedom of
> >speech (FoS), also are their own ISPs. Those with the least 
> FoS, are AOL,
> >MSN, JUNO, customers (all three practice content censorship 
> and state so in
> >their AUPs). 
> 
> What about content censorship by making a claim to "own" the 
> rights to a specific Domain Name then?  What if I believe 
> that madonna.com should 
> contain information about the Mother of Jesus Christ (and 
> also the selling of rosaries and bibles) and that the same 
> should apply for corinthians.com?  is it 
> not a type of censorship to force the people who were there 
> first to give up their rights to those domains?  Of course, 
> if you own the hardware, you can do 
> what you want with the English language mnemonic 
> tags/desigantions, huh?  This is one tricky proposition and 
> displays a lack of understanding of what  
> the real issues that are relevant to the DNSOs are!

That is NOT content censorship, by any stretch of the imagination! It is a
conflict of ownership. BTW, I did NOT agree with the outcome there, for the
record. The issues are not that tricky. It is UDRP that, in contravention of
MANY IP (Intellectual Property) laws, makes this sort of thing possible.
IMHO, the output of WG-A needs to be nullified.

> >Those of us whom are, in fact, our own ISPs, buy transit, in
> >bulk, from our upstream, at business rates. Many of us are 
> multi-homed and
> >have our own ASN's as well, they also buy their IP addresses 
> directly from
> >ARIN/RIPE/APNIC and negotiate their own peering. In short, we are not
> >content censored, because no one CAN censor our content. We 
> own our own
> >presses, as Kent says.
> 
> But what gives anybody the right to claim that they own the 
> characters of a language, it's syntax, and semantics?  How do 
> you own the bits and bytes 
> that travel through your network?  people pay for the service 
> of transmission, and you provide that... OK, but what about 
> the linguistic issue?  Is not 
> language Public Domain?  

Sure, just the same way that any other fundimental component of
communications are. However, when organized in a manner that it represents a
specific idea, concept, or other intellectual property, it becomes the
property of the one that did the formulation. It is their work-product, no
one else's. Thus says, international copyright law. Also, that does not
guarantee right of publication. The author can only publish, what they can
afford to publish. 

> >But, this isn't free, any of it. It all $costs$. Even USG 
> public information
> >is owned by the USG, which is owned by its citizens, and 
> which *may* be
> >given out to others freely. Its publication is paid by the 
> USG. Freedom of
> >speech is one thing, ability to publish is yet another. 
> Also, let's not
> >confuse market forces with "rights".
> 
> Seems to me that's what many of the "owners" of trademarks 
> are doing!  the market is based on supply and demand.  Also, 
> first come first served!  If you 
> go to McDonalds and they've run out of hamburgers, how does 
> this entitle you to somebody else's which is bought and paid 
> for?  Simply because your 
> friends call you by the nickname "Hamburglar"?!?!

You misunderstand my position.

> Let's put aside the antics and talk about the real problems here!

We can't do that with the mis-understandings I see exhibited here. The
"antics", as you say it, are the direct result of some basic
mis-understandings. It is the vociferous pleadings for rights that aren't
rights and issues that aren't issues, that form a fundimental distraction
for constructive discourse and compose the fundimental basis for the
"antics", as you call them. We need to get down off of the emotionally
charged pleadings and get down to the practical and legal issues before us.
For that to happen, we need proper basic understandings.
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