[discuss] Some more legal tangles for ICANN

Mon Jun 30 16:21:03 UTC 2014

On Jun 30, 2014, at 11:50 AM, Michele Neylon - Blacknight <michele at blacknight.com> wrote:

> The "ownership" of the database might be claimed by the ccTLD manager, but I'm not 100% convinced that it is either a matter of law or that it would be upheld should push come to shove .. 

Indeed - ownership is a very interesting word when applied to individual 
entries or subset of entries in any Internet protocol registry (including 
DNS and IP address space), and may not be applicable in any common use of 
the word given that there are multiple parties with claim to differing 
rights to both entries and to the collection as a whole...  For example, 
one may have the right to be the exclusive registrant of a given prefix 
string in DNS, but it is possible that the components of your DNS entry 
may have to change based on the right of the community to establish 
policies which require contact information in a certain format, etc.  

As far as I can determine, one's rights to an entry do not exist in a 
vacuum; they are rights to entry _which is part of a registry system_ 
and to which others therefore also have rights, albeit more limited in 
nature.  Part of participating in the registry system and benefitting 
from the global coordination it provides is agreeing to comply with the
policies used in operation of the registry; ergo, accepting that there
are other rights which intersect your right of being the sole registrant.

FYI,
/John

Disclaimer: My views alone.