> I don't see any problem with the consequences.
> I write a book and have someone publish it for me while I myself
> retain the copyright (if I'm smart). The copyright stays with me until
> X years after I die, and then the book falls into the public domain
> - -- anyone in the world can publish a book of Shakespeare's plays
> without infringing anyone's copyright since there is none any more.
>
Interesting, isnt it, that IP issues are so often framed in terms of
*impersonal content? Afaik, there are no word-libbers campaigning
that they have fundamental rights to the sentences which are
composed of them. And thats why IP laws are still struggling with
the idea of databases -- the data is attached to *people, and its
formulating a nice code that doesnt make it utterly obvious that
*people have a valid claim to their data that has got even WIPO tied
in knots.
> > One
> >concludes that registrants *voluntarily surrender (some) rights to a
> >registrar in order that the db can be maintained *for their
> >convenience. A further implication is that those rights are (some)
> >payment to a registrar to perform this service.
>
> Yeah, but that's what Yahoo tried to do with the emails that people
> posted on lists or whatever, and they backed off in a hurry!
Yahoo's customers may be easily shocked, but that's not to say
there isnt room for a consistent conceptual framework, which is all
I'm concerned with at this point. YAAL, so you get to be picky with
particular cases ;-)
> >Second, isnt this negotiability exactly why there might be more
> >than one registrar? (Why do you think so many folks want to get
> >into the registrar act? Why do you think ICANN is in place, if not to
> >*limit the number and prevent the market from collapsing?)
>
> Negotiate what? Nonexistent IP rights? Too many in this field (and
> in ifwp.org) know all sides of marketing, too many sides of internet
> technology, but barely squat about IP.
Thats why consistency at some level would be nice -- its usually
easy to comprehend ;-) Im trying to say its not NSI (or any other
registrar) that's the spanner in the works, its the fixed registration
cost. If I tell you where I live -- that is, give you valuable information
which you're going to peddle to parties unknown -- why should I
have to have to *pay you to accept that info? No, I pay you in
compensation (whats the phrase? - opportunity cost) so that you
*dont peddle it.
> The fact that registrar A runs a better WHOIS than does registrar
> B might persuade one to deal with A rather than B -- that is one of
> the ways in which competition can occur other than by price - --
> but that doesn't mean that either A or B "owns" one atom of the
> data so presented.
I agree, but am trying to go a step further: it is precisely my
'shopping' for a registrar which *creates the market in personal
data.
kerry
