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http://www.internetgovernance.org/2011/04/15/arin-stumbles-into-the-nortel-microsoft-ip-address-deal/

I searched for microsoft nortel broke rules and found a very different picture. http://www.internetgovernance....

The summary seems to be that ARIN has basically no power over these legacy (pre RIR) blocks.

IANA says you can't. Courts have said otherwise.

http://www.circleid.com/posts/...

http://www.internetgovernance....

http://domainincite.com/3936-m...

As any expert will tell you, none of these pie-in-the-sky proposals about the ITU taxing the Internet or the like have any chance of being pushed through. Even the US government itself doesn't take the risk seriously, except for political purposes like this. This is all just the latest step in a huge beat-up about something that could never happen. The motivation is just to distract from the real Internet governance changes that do need to happen, and that are being discussed much more sensibly in other fora (such as at the WSIS Forum last month in Geneva). That doesn't mean that we need to keep an eye the ITU, because it is true that it's a very secretive and closed organisation, but at least let's be honest about the risks.

As any expert will tell you, none of these pie-in-the-sky proposals about the ITU taxing the Internet or the like have any chance of being pushed through. Even the US government itself doesn't take the risk seriously, except for political purposes like this. This is all just the latest step in a huge beat-up about something that could never happen. The motivation is just to distract from the real Internet governance changes that do need to happen, and that are being discussed much more sensibly in other fora (such as at the WSIS Forum last month in Geneva). That doesn't mean that we need to keep an eye the ITU, because it is true that it's a very secretive and closed organisation, but at least let's be honest about the risks.

that doesn't work for the first release, only for ongoing costs.

I think h4rr4r was referring to the so-called street performer protocol for episodic works. The developer releases world 1 for free and then releases world 2 after having received enough donations to cover the development of world 1, etc. This assumes a work is episodic enough to be broken into such "worlds". Stephen King tried this with one of his novels but ended up abandoning it.

Yes, each copy does have a direct attached cost. One the is determined by the IP owner

The validity of "ownership" of Internet Protocol addresses is in dispute. But I understand that by "IP" you meant "copyright". Still, a lot of these discussions about business models for free software take place without assuming copyright because their goal is to find means "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" other than the amortization of the first copy's cost over subsequent copies that copyright enables.

The Obama administration is proposing (PDF) that domain approval procedures be changed to include a mandatory "review" by an ICANN advisory panel comprised of representatives of roughly 100 nations. The process is open-ended, saying that any government "may raise an objection to a proposed (suffix) for any reason." Unless at least one other nation disagrees, the proposed new domain name "shall" be rejected.

This would create an explicit governmental veto over new top-level domains. Under the procedures previously used in the creation of .biz, .name, and .info, among others, governments could offer advice, but the members of the ICANN board had the final decision.

If you didn't already know, ICANN is under contract to the United States government. So Obama's policy would effectively globalize the approval of new TLDs, in effect giving the US less power.

And if the story is to be believed, a TLD is only automatically rejected if one or more countries object and no countries disagree. If countries disagree or cannot form a consensus, the TLD isn't automatically rejected. Or specifically, from the PDF:

String Evaluation: The GAC advises the ICANN Board to instruct ICANN staff to amend the following procedures related to the Initial Evaluation called for in Module 2 to include review by governments, via the GAC. Any GAC member may raise an objection to a proposed string for any reason. If it is the consensus position of the GAC not to oppose objection raised by a GAC member or members, ICANN shall reject the application. (Note that the application fees should be refunded to the applicant).

Explanation: This proposal meets a number of compelling goals. First it will diminish the potential for blocking of top level domain strings considered objectionable by governments, which harms the architecture of the DNS and undermines the goal of universal resolvability. Second, affording governments the opportunity, through the GAC, to advise the ICANN Board that there is consensus GAC advice regarding particular proposed strings that should not be processed is supportive of ICANN’s commitment to ensure that its decision are in the global public interest.

(Emphasis added.)

So, in effect, it's creating an international body where members can object, but other members can block an objection. To my understanding, that's pretty much the opposite of veto power, and it's certainly not a US government takeover of DNS TLDs (in as much as they didn't own the process already).

Really, it all depends on how much faith you have that the other, saner countries will block objections instead of being pussies.

It's not a question of why they finally relented so much as what took so long. There's no inherent reason why this should've taken so long. The reasoning was that the conservatives don't want any porn anywhere, and the porn industry was concerned about being relegated to a ghetto TLD.

The question likely depends on whether you think this is a good idea or not. ICANN has looked at the issue several times in the past decade and denied it. That didn't take long. It is the relentless pursuit (ICANN notes that Lawley claims an over US$5 mil bill for this pursuit) that took so long.

Comments on this petition should be sent to ICANN via the email address "cyber-safety-petition@icann.org" mailto:cyber-safety-petition@icann.org

Yarro's anti-porn crusaders are currently bombarding ICANN with form letters supporting this censorship initiative. See: http://forum.icann.org/lists/cyber-safety-petition/mail3.html

Here is more information on this issue from IP Justice and the Internet Governance Project: http://ipjustice.org/wp/2009/03/19/robert-yarro-and-his-anti-porn-crusaders-march-on-icann/ http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2009/3/17/4125801.html

There is a W3C article, Why Using TLDs for Filtering is Ineffective, Harmful, and Unnecessary, that points out all the downfalls of creating a .xxx domain. This excerpt sums up why I am personally opposed to the idea:

"7. The definition of what is offensive obviously differs greatly from country to country, from year to year, and from person to person. If bare ankles are considered obscene in some cultures, but are permitted in photos of Web sites in France selling sandals, then individuals wishing to keep photos of bare ankles out of their home using filtering on ".xxx" are unlikely to succeed. How will sites about safe sex or AIDS be treated? Who will establish what is art and what is pornography?"

Also, having read these documents it appears to me that this whole thing is nothing but a land grab by ICM.