[governance] Capacity building: there is still work to do :-)

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ray Plzak [mailto:plzak at arin.net] 
> The fundamental issue is one of ownership and I would say 
> that Internet names and numbers do not have ownership but are 
> in the public trust. 

It depends on whether one is using an _economics_ definition of
"ownership," a legal definition or a political definition. In economic
terms, if you have the exclusive control of a resource, and can exclude
others from it, charge fees for it or otherwise manage its use, then you
"own" it. In this sense, ARIN as a corporate entity "owns" the address
space it allocates, even though it advances an essentially political
claim that it exercises those ownership powers as a "public trust." 

When Ray says that numbers are in the public trust what he means is that
the de facto owner as a matter of policy tries to manage the resource in
the public interest, and therefore severely limits the right of private
users of the resource to gain permanent and exclusive control of them.
This is a political claim. It would be a lot stronger if we knew which
"public" he is referring to and how this transnational public legally
delegated the right to look after its interests to the RIRs (i.e.,
through legislation?) But, see my last paragraph below.

One could also say that "no one owns" the address space in the sense
that the IP standard specifications are a nonproprietary document and
anyone can appropriate and use any IP address they want with no bad
effects, as long as it is inside a private network and the router's
address announcements don't spill out onto the public Internet. If the
addresses someone has appropriated do clash with RIR assignments to
another entity, does that entity or the RIR have any grounds to take
legal action against them? If they do, they are de facto asserting a
property right in the addresses; if they don't, their actions are
consistent with the notion that addresses are unowned. 

The legal definition is more nuanced and varies from country to country;
the property rights that one has in domain names differ in many ways
from the property rights one gets in real estate or an automobile
because domains are an outcome of a service contract and not a physical
entity. However, you can obviously buy, sell, or lease domains and
addresses and most economists would have no trouble viewing this as a
kind of property right, although (like all property rights) it is highly
conditioned by policies and regulations.  

Here's my bottom line: the debate over whether names and numbers are
property rights or part of a "public trust" is essentially ideological
and doesn't get us too far. It would be far better to view names and
numbers as resources that have to be managed efficiently and equitably,
and to talk about the specific policies and practices instituted to do
so. Private trading or transfers of property rights can serve an
important allocation and efficiency functions, which is why the RIRs
have just started to propose plans to allow address transfers. Policies
to encourage shared, nonexclusive use can also play an important and
creative role. So let's debate the merits and demerits of specific
policies and not start foaming at the mouth at the mention of words like
"property" or "public trust." 

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