[Fwd: Kremen VS Arin Antitrust Lawsuit - Anyone have feedback?]

Fri Sep 8 11:43:57 UTC 2006

 If it gets to trial, I can see all kinds of stunts..
A jury trial on a highly technical issue?
We hope that ma and pa non-computer literate owners are not on the
jury....

But I think Michael is right, too many technical errors and less than
accurate statements.
Someone does not understand what is going on and wrote an interesting
read of a case...

Later,
J
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On Behalf Of
Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 7:36 AM
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Kremen VS Arin Antitrust Lawsuit - Anyone have
feedback?]

> I am looking for anyone who has input on possibly the largest case 
> regarding internet numbering ever. This lawsuit may change the way 
> IP's are governed and adminstered. Comments on or off list please.

My personal opinion is that this is yet another example of ignorance
leading to anger leading to a stupid waste of court time. The case is
filled with incorrect statements of fact which ARIN can easily demolish.
But at the bottom line, these people are complaining because ARIN didn't
let them use some IP addresses that were assigned to a different
company.

Since IP addresses are basically available free from any ISP who sells
Internet access services, this seems like a severe error in judgement on
the part of the plaintiff. A smart businessperson would have used the
free IP addresses to keep their business online even if they did decide
to dispute ARIN's decision.

But in the end, IP addresses are not property, therefore they cannot be
assets and cannot be transferred. They can only be kept if they are in
use on network assets which are transferred and which continue to be
operational. And even then, most people have no choice as to which
specific address block they use. They simply take what the ISP gives
them.

I personally suspect that ARIN will have this thrown out of court in
fairly short order. Even if it did go much further, the parallels with
NANPA would see it fade away quite quickly. 

This discussion really belongs on http://www.groklaw.net/ where I note
it has not yet appeared. Perhaps another indication that this is a
tempest in a teapot.

--Michael Dillon