Re: Trademarks, random strings, sharing, reserved words

[Karl Denninger <karl@Mcs.Net>]

Brad wrote...
> Other than that people keep forgetting that "apple" is not a TM of anybody
> on its own.  There are many apple companies, and the fact that apple.com
> is Apple Computer's does not stop Apple Records from having
> apple.records.tm.int -- and it is in no way an infringement of Apple Records
> TM to have Apple Computer using apple.com.   Apple.com is not a valid  TM
> use.   If Apple Computer used apple.com to sell records instead of Macs,
> Apple Records would ahve the right to stop them in ordinary civil court.
> 
> So let's have many top level domains, and nobody is *stopped* from using their
> TM.   They are only stopped from using it in a form in which it is not a TM,
> namely without a context.  

......

But Brad, there are tons of lawyers on the IAHC (percentage-wise).

They didn't FORGET anything.  They ignored it.  The only justification I can
see for this thought process had to go something like this:

1)	We need to artificially limit the number of registries and TLDs
	(because it enables the rest of this line of reasoning and justifies
	our existance).
2)	We therefore need to impose restrictive fees (to the point of 
	exhorbitance) and severely limit the number of entrants.
3)	We'll choose seven TLDs to issue, and only 20-30 registries.

4)	Oh crap!  Now we have to do the 60-day waiting period because we
	DELIBERATELY IGNORED THE FACT (clearly pointed out to the IAHC in 
	several of the pre-existing drafts, including mine) that the
	existing DNS namespace doesn't map onto the three-dimensional
	(name/line-of-work/geography) namespace of trademarks in the real
	world.  Further, we didn't even extend the namespace to TWO
	dimensions (name/line-of-work) -- doing that would have required
	issuing HUNDREDS of TLDs and we don't want to do that -- no no no,
	that breaks up the monopoly control and we lose the ability to
	"police" the process ourselves.

Once you start the premise that you're going to do things a certain way, you
get backed into corners on the real issues that you claim to be trying to
solve.  The truth is that you were never trying to resolve those issues at
all.

I believe the IAHC is well aware of this, and had no intention at any time
of actually resolving the trademark .vs. the net dillema.  For this reason
they should be either (1) held accountable for their actions legally, or (2)
ignored -- its time for people to back the Alternic.

> We must get rid of the special status of .com.  This status causes people
> to think that "foo.com" is the only "real" domain for somebody using the name
> "foo" and thus you have conflicts.  If people stop thinking that the problem
> is resovled, mostly.

First you have to be willing to actually map the DNS namespace in a
reasonable semblance of how things work in the real world.  The IAHC is
unwilling to do that.

--
-- 
Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - The Finest Internet Connectivity
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