Re: Normal ARIN registration service fees for LRSA entrants after 31 Dec 2023 (was: Fwd: [arin-announce] Availability of the Legacy Fee Cap for New LRSA Entrants Ending as of 31 December 2023)

[John Curran <jcurran () arin net>]

Tom -

That’s one way of characterizing the situation, but there’s also a deeper aspect that may not be readily apparent –

The nature of the Internet number registry system is inherently different than that a normal customer / vendor 
relationship,
in that the entire concept underlying the system is that it would be the industry engaged in a form of self-regulation 
(rather
than folks simply receiving a service paid for and defined by the US Government, or procuring some off-the-shelf 
commercial
service); i.e., the users of the Internet number registry system were intended to be the stakeholders that governed 
each of
the regional Internet registries, with each RIR acting a steward of the Internet number resources in its region.

At ARIN’s inception, legacy resource holders were provided the same services as before w/o any requirement to pay a fee 
or
enter into a contract – that’s a very reasonable transition approach.  Alas, there was no consideration given to 
further evolution
of services/rights for legacy resource holders, as the assumption was that those desiring some form of evolution of 
their RIR
services would become stakeholders and discuss it with the rest of the community via participation in governance of 
their
regional Internet number registry.   The concept of number resources that were part of – but somehow external to the
governance of the Internet number registry in perpetuity – actually runs contrary to the very concept of self-regulating
community-based stewardship, and hence a significant part of disconnect behind the disagreements that we see here.

FYI,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers

On 19 Sep 2022, at 10:16 AM, Tom Beecher <beecher () beecher cc<mailto:beecher () beecher cc>> wrote:

I highly recommend that legacy holders who wish to ensure that their rights are respected transfer their registrations 
to RIPE-NCC, whether they have signed the LRSA or not.

For the uninitiated, this is the crux of the disagreements. (Before I begin, this is not a personal shot at Owen or 
anybody else.)

Allocations made before the RIR systems were created have no contracts or covenants attached. Allocations made from the 
RIRs do.

The 'rights' claimed by legacy holders are therefore unenumerated ; their argument is essentially 'nothing says I don't 
have these rights, so I say I do'. This leads to the current situation, where the legacy holders don't really want any 
case law or contractual agreements to enumerate what rights they may (or may not) have, because if that happens, they 
would be prevented from asserting some new right in the future. We all I think acknowledge that technology often races 
out in front of the law, this situation is no different.

Many people have legitimate concerns about policies at different RIRs, and this isn't a shot at those either. But 
fundamentally, this has meant there has been a 2 tier system since the inception of the RIRs that legacy holders don't 
have to follow the same rules as the rest of us.

On Sun, Sep 18, 2022 at 1:52 PM Owen DeLong via NANOG <nanog () nanog org<mailto:nanog () nanog org>> wrote:
I highly recommend that legacy holders who wish to ensure that their rights are respected transfer their registrations 
to RIPE-NCC, whether they have signed the LRSA or not.

Transferring to RIPE-NCC as Legacy without Contract will afford you full respect for your rights in your resources in 
perpetuity (or at least as long as RIPE-NCC lasts) without requiring a contract and without having to pay fees.

If you need to establish presence in Europe to satisfy RIPE’s requirements, a cheap virtual machine can be leased for a 
month or two to get through the process and is never verified or validated thereafter.

I was an early signatory to the LRSA thinking I was doing the right thing. After the ARIN board changed end users from 
fee-per-ORG to fee-per-resource in order to get around the fee cap and bifurcated my org into two orgs (allowing them 
to charge even more), I came to regret that decision. Since transferring my legacy resources to RIPE-NCC, I have been 
considerably happier.

Owen


> On Sep 13, 2022, at 18:24 , Randy Bush <randy () psg com<mailto:randy () psg com>> wrote:
>
> > We strongly encourage all legacy resource holders who have not yet
> > signed an LRSA to cover their legacy resources to
>
> consult a competent lawyer before signing an LRSA
>
> randy