[governance] Good contribution on IP addresses and Internet Governance

[John Curran]

On Apr 22, 2011, at 9:16 PM, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> ...
> What I am getting at with all of this is that when we start to talk about IP addresses, let's drop the heavily overloaded word "property" and start to talk about who obtains what legally enforceable rights *and duties* as the result of an address allocation.

Well said Karl.  Here's a reply to Milton I posted the other day with the same basic emphasis:

To be clear, ARIN has never asserted that registrants have no rights with respect address blocks registered to them; that would actually run contrary to one of the key goals of the registry itself in making address blocks available for exclusive use of the registrant. As part of the registry services offered by ARIN, address block holders have various rights (such as the right to be the exclusive registrant, to update their registration information, and even the right to transfer their address blocks to another party), all in compliance with policies developed by the community. The rights to do these things in ARIN"s registration database are quite real, but do not create a "personal property interest" in the IP addresses. 

Arguing that one "owns" IP addresses is akin to arguing that you "own" the number on the coat check tag you were given; you were actually assigned the unique number for a particular purpose, and while one might argue that you have certain rights to it, the tag becomes meaningless when removed from the system. 

As a result of our involvement, the references in the documents filed by the parties have been changed accordingly, e.g. "all of the Seller’s right, title and interest in and to the Legacy Number Blocks" is now "Seller's Rights in and to the Legacy Number Blocks". ARIN's intervention was simply to clarify the status of IP addresses, and we are pleased that the parties will perform the transfer in compliance with the community developed policies. 

Despite your rhetoric to the contrary, the ARIN community encourages a limited *market-based* approach to improving utilization of IP number resources, including developing the specified transfer policy to allow qualified recipients to obtain additional address space from other registrants as needed. This is a perfect example of how private-sector, community-based leadership can evolve Internet policy as needed to adapt to changing circumstances yet still maintain the Internet stability that we all value. 

ARIN remains quite able and willing to intervene in the future if it should prove necessary to protect these principles. 

/John 

John Curran 
President and CEO 
ARIN

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