Re: combined shared/private?

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Tue, Sep 30, 1997 at 04:58:13PM -0400, Robert J. DuWors wrote:
> name really leased?  If you don't pay your fee you lose it; smells like
> leasing to me.

Me too.

> And what does this style of "ownership" mean?  If it were a trade mark,
> then the right to sell it would one of the prime attributes of ownership
> [which the gTLD-MOU currently indicates to be a very bad thing to do for
> domain names unless, of course you own a trademark, in which case it is
> great entrepreneurial "free" market practice despite the obvious deception
> of consumer belief about the "origins of the goods or service"].  If you
> don't lease it and you don't really own it [according the acid test of
> right to sell] how can a domain name be called a piece of intellectual
> "property"?

You do lease it.  While having intellectual property rights in a 
leased object may seem strange, it's not that complicated to think about.

[.rhetorical "why" questions deleted..]

> Who in their right mind would tie their hands with "binding arbitration" at
> registration time?  Why isn't this mess left to the courts where it will go
> anyway ...

Because binding arbitration is orders of magnitude cheaper, and even
if it only works 25% of the time you are still better off.  Doesn't
take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. 

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html