Ownership of IP space

[Dick desJardins <desjardi@eos.nasa.gov>]

Well, this may bring up a big can of worms that have been lying
quietly in the basement waiting to be fed to the fish, but:

Someone said (don't know who):

> > If they set there own policy on DNS, why don't they set there own policy on
> > IP space? Either someone controls  . and you have to agree on who get under
> >  or not. Yo cannot have two seperate classes of TLDs. No country owns the
> > Internet, and no country own the IP space, and why should any one country
> > have any policy , and be allowed under . ?

Unfortunately, it is not strictly true that "no country owns the IP space".
I believe that the US Government invented the IP space and claims
ownership of the IPv4 address space, at least, as well as the root domain
system, and the US Government delegated authority to organizations
in the early days of the Internet to operate those resources as a public
service.  (This is similar to ownership of other public resources -- and I'm
not a lawyer, so I'm giving my personal understanding only.)

The IPv4 address space is nearly depleted, so it may be ownership of
something like an oil field which is nearly depleted, but I believe that
the US Government still claims ownership of that.  In regard to the
new gTLD which is being set up, I don't believe that the US Government
claims ownership of that, because the Internet has "grown up" since its
early days, and is now an international public resource, not a US public
resource.

But speaking *strictly* as to the statement made above, I believe it is
incorrect from a legal point of view that "no country owns the IP space".
(It may be moot, but it is incorrect, IMO.)

I leave it to someone from NSF (George Strawn?  He is on the IAHC) or
DARPA to elaborate on this if necessary.

Dick desJardins
speaking from my personal, non-lawyer understanding
(disclosure: I am currently the NASA representative to the FNC,
and I worked at DARPA in the mid-80s in the group that built the
early ARPAnet/Internet).


Dick desJardins
EOS Network Manager
GSFC Code 505, Greenbelt MD  20771
Phone 301-614-5329        FAX  -5267