Re: registrar charging $30,000 for "platinum" pre-registration

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Thu, Nov 13, 1997 at 05:07:00PM +0000, Jeff Williams wrote:
> Kent and all,
> 
> Kent Crispin wrote:
[...]
> > 
> > Keep in mind also that the only names likely to be worth anything
> > like that amount are names with significant intellectual property
> > value, and the ACP rules make it pretty difficult to capitalize on
> > what is clearly someone else's intellectual property.
> 
>   Hummmmm?  Intresting change of view with respect ot intellectual
> property stance from you Kent.  >;)

Not at all.  If you have clear rights to a name, it won't do a pirate 
any good to grab it before you (which is precisely what strict first 
come first serve encourages).  In prior policy regimes, pirates could 
grab a name, and sell it for any amount less than the court costs.  
The goal of the ACPs is to reduce the legal costs to a very low amount.

So it doesn't make sense for a pirate to reserve a name for $30000, 
and it doesn't make sense for a business with a legitimate right to 
the name to reserve it either, since it would cost them far less than 
that to challenge the pirate in an ACP.

I don't know if the ACPs will work out -- I hope they do, but there
are obvious obstacles.  In the best case, ACPs will faithfully reflect
a rational international view of IP law, courts will come to
respect their findings, and, over a few years, a consistent, level, 
international playing field will develop for domain name IP 
conflicts.  That would be a win for everybody.

-- 
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