Re: ARIN legacy block transfer process

[William Herrin <bill () herrin us>]

On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 5:09 PM, John Curran <jcurran () arin net> wrote:
> On 3 Oct 2016, at 4:06 PM, William Herrin <bill () herrin us> wrote:
> > ARIN asserts they've taken no action because community developed
> > policy instructs them not to.  That is a half-truth. The whole truth
> > is that ARIN has bent over backwards to avoid testing in court whether
> > they have the lawful authority to enforce any policies against legacy
> > address holders, even to the extent of bending or breaking their own
> > policies when settling a court case.
>
> Bill - You’re not quite correct with these statements, as there
> have been many court orders that require parties to enter
> into an RSA and comply with the IP registry policy

Hi John,

I was a little sloppy with my language. When two parties in a court
case reach an agreement and ask the judge to accept that agreement,
the result is a court order. It is not, however, a precedent-setting
judgement.

> Half-correct, in that these bankruptcy cases do result in judicial orders;
> however, the fact that the parties consent to the terms in order to proceed
> with the transfer is correct.
> (Presumably they would do otherwise if they
> had a valid basis for argument, but that hasn’t happened.)

That reasoning escapes me. How does years in court fighting ARIN
advantage a buyer in a bankruptcy sale? Make the best deal you can
without a fight and quickly close. Bankruptcies are all about
pragmatism.


> We have routinely argue that IP address blocks are not
> common law property and prevail - we have never been
> ordered to make registry updates contrary
> to the community policy.

You prevail through consent. In one sense, that speaks well of you.
But no court has ruled either for you or against you. There is
literally no precedent on the matter of addresses as property as a
result of the cases ARIN has been involved in. And in my opinion, ARIN
has cut a couple shifty deals to avoid having a judge rule in a way
that would set a precedent.

That probably comes across harsher than I intend. I think it's good
that ARIN seeks agreement over conflict. Wise even - addresses handed
out after ARIN's inception are governed under much clearer contract
law. Enough delay settling the law with respect to legacy IPv4
addresses will let IPv6 render the issue moot.

Anyway, my point is that ARIN's position on the matter aside, no one
holding legacy IP addresses should believe that addresses as
non-property is settled law.

And with that I'll get off my soap box and bid you a good evening.

Regards,
Bill Herrin



-- 
William Herrin ................ herrin () dirtside com  bill () herrin us
Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>