However, regarding APNIC, from what i read on
https://www.apnic.net/community/policy/resources#8.3.-Transfer-of-Historical -Internet-resources it is not 100% clear to me that the transferred blocks lose their legacy/historical status. Can you list which policy proposals within each RIR that resulted in the above...? ...so we may have some clue about the timeline of such changes -- which may have been passed under the legacy holders radar... Additionally, maybe someone involved with transfers on a daily basis can comment if a block with legacy status has less/equal/more value than non-legacy blocks??? Cheers, Carlos Can you list which policy proposals within each RIR that resulted in the above...? ...so we may have some clue about the timeline of such changes -- which may have been passed under the legacy holders radar... Additionally, maybe someone involved with transfers on a daily basis can comment if a block with legacy status has less/equal/more value than non-legacy blocks??? Cheers, Carlos Hi Carlos, We have done every version of transfer, I believe, and can speak from experience. In APNIC, the seller of historical resources can sign up as a temporary member with APNIC in order to be vetted before the sale, then when the block is transferred it loses its legacy status. Only RIPE transfer recipients can maintain legacy status, except for some M&A transfers. When I proposed a re-write of ARIN's transfer policy in 2011, I wrestled with the requirement that the blocks lose legacy status, but included the requirement that the recipient sign an RSA, at the time that meant it lost legacy status. https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/2011-May/022171.html My feelings at the time, as a legacy holder, were that as long as we had the right to hold the blocks without regard to their utilization, and we had the right to sell the blocks, that losing the legacy status wouldn't be a big deal. In AFRINIC's case, there is the issue of whether addresses can be revoked for lack of utilization for originally intended and justified purposes under its RSA. You can read in the link above that in 2011, while I included language requiring an RSA of recipients in my policy proposal, I simultaneously requested a change to ARIN's RSA language to explicitly remove its ability to revoke for utilization or lack thereof. So in AFRINIC today, I would want to maintain legacy status because it protects me from revocation under RSA, if I was a buyer. The arguments from RIPE about their inability, due to a lack of contract, to force a change of status, is disingenuous to me. Sure they can't force legacy holders to do anything, but can legacy holders force RIPE to process transfers? Is RIPE bound, contractually or morally, to register transfers of legacy space in the same way they are bound to maintain existing registrations and original services to the legacy block owners? Must legacy rights be "grandfathered-in"? I think you can argue that transfers were not part of the original scope of legacy registrant services, and that the RIRs do have the right to insist on paid registration of transferred blocks while at the same time the RIRs continue to honor the legacy rights of the original registrants. That said, currently the value of legacy status is strictly tied to the lack of policy restrictions, and registration costs avoided. As policy restrictions become less restrictive, the added value of legacy status is merely the registration fee avoidance. We have brokered transfers of legacy blocks from APNIC and ARIN into RIPE, maintaining legacy status thereafter. So certainly there are some who ascribe greater value to legacy blocks, and greatest to RIPE legacy blocks. This is because RIPE has the least restrictive transfer policies related to RIPE space. RIPE legacy blocks can be transferred to any entity that the blocks can be legally sold to. No demonstration of need, recipient can be a natural person or any other legal entity, recipient does not need to be an LIR or RIPE member of any kind, and can be located anywhere in the world. RIPE will require documentation of the legal chain-of-custody and the sale, and if the legal documentation is sound, the transfer is processed. Remember that legacy holders might theoretically be able to legally transfer ownership rights to their blocks without registry interactions, but where does that leave the buyer? Almost every buyer wants his title registered publicly as protection of his assets. So legacy block transfer recipients have an incentive to comply with policies like needs tests and holding periods in order to acquire that public Whois registration of rights-ownership. Why can't we expect them to swallow and accept the change of legacy designation as an additional cost of acquiring that valuable registration in the RIR's database? Well, one reason is if they fear that their blocks will be revoked by an AFRINIC audit process if they aren't used for their original purpose down the road. TL;DR: Legacy blocks have a very slight additional value; AFRINIC RSA revocation language impacts this decision about legacy status Regards, Mike
