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Donald Langenberg
- posted on 2000-10-01 20:04:41
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I don't have a position on this yet. A comment however: So far as I know, intellectual property law is applicable regardless of the nature of the owner of the property. That is, it doesn't distinguish between individuals, non-profit (e.g., universities) and commercial owners. It seems to me that is as it should be.
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Barbara Simons
- posted on 2000-10-01 14:52:19
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This is a difficult question for me. On the one hand, I like the idea of having TLDs that function as safe havens from intellectual property claims. And I like the idea of having TLDs that can be used to search for specific kind of information, e.g. a dot museum or dot union TLD. On the other hand, I am strongly opposed to having ICANN determine what is and what is not acceptable - or of making such a requirement of the operators of the registries. Therefore, I am inclined to oppose chartered TLDs. I am willing, however, to listen to arguments that address my specific concerns.
There is still the option for registrars to create chartered TLDs and to write appropriate restrictions into their contracts. If the number of TLDs is sufficiently large, this should not cause any undo hardship, and it could well solve the problem without involving ICANN.
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Harris Miller
- posted on 2000-09-29 11:57:12
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I believe that chartered and unchartered TLDs have an important role in the Net community. I would oppose ICANN attempting to determine by policy fiat which charters are protected from commercial Intellectual Property claims as totally unworkable and unenforceable. It also is not ICANN's mission to enforce such a policy.
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Emerson Tiller, J.D., Ph.D.
- posted on 2000-09-28 18:27:47
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I think chartered and general TLDs should be allowed. And I don't think we need to put artificial limits on their numbers. I don't think that ICANN should pre-determine which chartered TLDs should exist. ICANN should let the market decide which TLDs will exist. ICANN's role is to evaluate competency of TLD operator and to screen out a TLD only in the most extreme cases. I prefer an auction method for allocating domain names, with lower (refundable) application fees for nonprofit, chartered TLDs.
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Lyman Chapin
- posted on 2000-09-28 18:02:23
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I think there is a place for both chartered and unchartered TLDs; we have both in the current root, and we should let demand drive the creation of new domains of either type. However, I don't believe it's possible to create a TLD of either type in which registrants would be protected, in a legal sense, from commercial intellectual property claims. It might be possible to establish a TLD with a sufficiently explicit non-commercial charter that corporate trademark holders would refrain from pressing intellectual property claims, but their right to do so as a matter of law is not subject to constraint by ICANN or any TLD registry.
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Lawrence Lessig
- posted on 2000-09-27 11:36:15
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This is exactly what I think, and I think
ICANN must price this so that just this
sort of diversity can occur.
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Karl Auerbach
- posted on 2000-09-26 20:28:00
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I think that TLDs that operate under ICANN granted charters are a bad idea. It turns ICANN into a policeman.
I don't mind the operators of a TLD deciding to operate under a charter of their own definition and to undertake their own policing and enforcement.
Even obvious and easy charters like bank are full of ambiguities. For instance, is a blood bank a bank? How about a credit union? What about a brokerage house that offers what look and smell like banking services - loans and depository services? Is the World Bank a bank? Is GE Capital a bank?
And what something that is clearly a bank offers additional services that are very un-bank like? Do they have to use another domain name?
ICANN has enough on its plate already without it getting into the business of creating and enforcing TLD charters.
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