[governance] DNS [Property or Public Good]

[Mawaki Chango]

 I got that, Karl --and sorry for your ipad pain :)

My question is this: Is this answer of yours also an answer (if only
indirectly) to the question of DNS as public good. Well, assuming one can
formulate a definition of public good without positively relying on the
concept of property as culturally overloaded as it is -- but then again if
the implication of your repeated answer is that such formulation of a
definition of 'public good' is impossible, then yes your repeated answer is
the only thing I can get.

Is the unbundling of rights and duties (on specific pieces/instances of the
DNS) the only way you see fit for the question of the DNS (as a whole) as
possible public good, too?

mawaki


On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 11:09 PM, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:

> I'm doing this on an ipad so please excuse it being terse...
>
> I am not suggesting that we avoid notions such as control or alienabiliy
> or the right to exclude others..  Rather I am simply suggesting that we
> stay away from culturally loaded words such as"property".   I would prefer
> that we use the concept of the rights and duties that arise rather than
> bundling all that under the ambiguous word "property".
>
>     --karl--
>
> On Apr 1, 2014, at 12:46 PM, Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Jeanette, Karl:
>
> So you've made the case for avoiding the concept of "property," indeed for
> its inadequacy, wrt the DNS. What about the other side of the coin? Can the
> DNS be considered a public good? That is, the DNS as lnternet logical
> infrastructure --not his or that gTLD or this or that domain name.
> Thanks,
>
> Mawaki
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 10:13 AM, Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette at wzb.eu>wrote:
>
>> Hi Karl,
>>
>> +1
>>
>> The term property suggests a totality and uniformity of ownership that in
>> practice often turns out to be wrong. Ownership is always subject to
>> conditions and those may vary across and time and political/juridical
>> cultures. This also means that exclusive rights and obligations are not
>> fixed forever but are negotiable.
>>
>> jeanette
>>
>> Am 29.03.14 02:26, schrieb Karl Auerbach:
>>
>>  On 03/28/2014 06:17 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote:
>>>
>>>    1. Is the DNS property or public good?
>>>>
>>>
>>> The word "property" is very heavily overloaded by cultural and legal
>>> context.
>>>
>>> I find it much better to avoid that word altogether and rather to
>>> consider the collection of rights and obligations that person X has to
>>> thing Y.
>>>
>>> For example, with regard to domain names X could be the registrant and
>>> X's rights include the right to delegate name servers, to sub-delegate,
>>> etc.  While the obligations might include paying fees, providing contact
>>> information, etc etc.
>>>
>>> Same for registrars - they have certain rights and obligations with
>>> regard to that same domain name (from the prior paragraph above) such
>>> acting as the intermediary to a registry, etc etc.
>>>
>>> Some people may consider those contractual things.  But to me that is
>>> merely a difference in words without real difference in substance.
>>>
>>> I suggest, therefore, that in discussing these sorts of things that we
>>> can avoid a lot of miscommmunication by avoiding the difficult word
>>> "property".
>>>
>>>         --karl--
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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