CircleID

Prove that alternate roots are going to meet your vaguely defined "needs" rather than lead to complete chaos and groups of people each touting their own set of TLDs, none of which the users of some competing system can reach [terms of reference - see how one of those can reach critical mass, and what shape and form it will achieve once it reaches critical mass, then compare it to the existing dns root structure]

Then in that other charming rant about abolishing the word "stakeholders" (rather pointless, that) all you are suggesting is that the opinion of each person should count, rather than each organization. What you really should try to do is to gather together a bunch of people who think the same as you do and form a new organization, walk into wsis with that. Or try to influence change in the old organization .. though as you are talking about ICANN I do realize you'll simply repeat your views that ICANN should be completely demolished and replaced from the ground up.  Oh well.

As for the UDRP, giving it its due, it is uniform. And its workings aren't subject to the variations of potentially hundreds of different courts and legislatures.  On the other hand, have you noticed that UDRP proceedings are quite often accompanied by lawsuits under trademark infringement laws (for example), in local courts? 

As I kind of expected, your article is Interesting but charmingly impractical collection of rants.  God knows the current situation is bad but what you're suggesting is going to only make it far worse.

Thanks for so clearly illustrating my point about hidden-agendas masked as techno-speak.

The portrait of the internet future you paint is one that is very dreary: Users get neither voice nor choice.  The end-to-end principle is only for the privileged.  Local and national authority are superseded by industrial combinations.

It is authoritarian viewpoints such as yours that require the first principle of internet governance be a reminder that the internet is for the benefit of its users, not vice versa.

Karl, no hidden agenda here as such. Merely tired of your vague ranting that you like to think is technospeak.

Heard much of it before too, and I'm sure I'll hear it again, in one blog or the other. But circleid has a rather higher standard of discussion than that is what I'd fondly imagine.

Politics and technical issues dont mix, its said. But given the currently politicized situation, I'm much more in favor of improving the governance of at least some of the key stakeholders, from within. What you are suggesting is what the anarchists used to suggest - that the situation is so broken that nothing except demolition and ground up reconstruction is going to help.

And that still doesnt answer my question about the root servers.

-srs

QUESTION: Is a TLD intellectual property?

ANSWER = YES.

When a TLD is created it relies on a database to operate.

QUESTION: Is a database intellectual property?

ANSWER = YES.

QUESTION: What intellectual property laws govern a TLD.

ANSWER = Copyright law.

END OF DISCUSSION.

Domain names are governed by copyright, because databases are intellectual property? That's a frightfully simplistic analysis, Joe. In fact, it's such a non sequitur I'm almost at a loss as to where to start criticising it. It's like saying that the proper legal doctrine to cover business names is copyright because the USPTO maintains a database of trademarks.

Intellectual property laws serve as a means to an end. That end is often subverted by powerful vested interests who see the law as a way of maximising return on minimum effort (e.g. retroactive copyright term extensions), but ideally the laws are supposed to produce generally desirable social effects. They are intended to "promote the sciences and useful arts", or facilitate honest trade (in the case of trademarks).

I think Karl's Principles of Internet Governance are resoundingly impractical, but at least they recognise the need for describing the end that the means is supposed to reach (see his point number three). Your comments completely ignore this aspect of the issue and evince a deep misunderstanding; they are the kind of remarks that would make an experienced law-monger roll his eyes at your ignorance, in the same way that technologists roll their eyes when someone asks where the Internet is.

Fully agree with Brett - you aren't going to find copyright law very useful or applicable.

I think Karl’s Principles of Internet Governance are resoundingly impractical, but at least they recognise the need for describing the end that the means is supposed to reach (see his point number three).

Karl's point #3 - Well, even a clock is right twice a day - but seriously, there is (using more wsis type terminology) a broad consensus on Karl's point #3.  The difference of course is in people failing to agree on the goals, and the way these are to be achieved.

I agree with Bret Watson when he states that my remarks on TLDs being databases and by default covered by copyright law is "a frightfully simplistic analysis".  Yes indeed it is.

But I see no logical critism or any point made by my critics which clearly states what is wrong with that analysis.

I expect the only frightfull aspect of this is that no one ever figured it out in all these years of argument.

Any lawyer out there who would care to challenge this analysis.  Karl - you game?