RE: Can a customer take IP's with them?

["David Schwartz" <davids () webmaster com>]

> On Tue, 22 Jun 2004, David Schwartz wrote:

> > > In other words, customer is asking a court to rule whether or
> > > not IP space
> > > should be portable, when an industry-supported organization (ARIN) has
> > > made policy that the space is in fact not portable. It can be further
> > > argued that the court could impose a TRO that would
> > > potentially negatively
> > > affect the operation of my network.

> >     A court will likely decide this based upon the terms of
> > your contract and
> > what the court thinks is fair. They will likely give very little
> > consideration to common practice or ARIN's rules.

> Actually, I don't think that's the case. ARIN still owns the numbers, NAC
> is just leasing them. Therefore, ARINs rules supercede anything
> contractual between NAC and the customer.

        Yes, but the court won't care about that. They'll simply enjoin the ISP
from interfering with the customer's use of those IP addresses. ARIN can do
whatever they want about it, but that would be a totally separate issue.

> For instance, if what you say were true, all an ISP would have to do in
> order to "sell" their IP space is to create a contract stating that they
> are doing so.

        Exactly. If they did that, a court would likely enjoin them from making any
action to interfere with the customer's use of those IP addresses. A court
would likely find the contract binding upon the parties that entered into
it.

> Contracts are rarely as binding as people think they are. Of course, I'm
> no lawyer, I just hate paying them.

        Let me try to give you a hypothetical to show you why ARIN is irrelevent.
Suppose I am a member of the Longshoreman's assocation and you have a
contract to buy shrimp for $8/pound provided you only resell it to members
of the LA. You then enter into a contract with me to sell me shrimp for
$10/pound. But then I leave the LA. Ooops, now you can no longer resell me
the shrimp. So you break our contract and I sue you. Does your contract with
your shrimp provider matter? If you continue to sell me shrimp even though
I'm not in the LA, who does your shrimp supplier sue? You or me?

        DS