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Parody and Satire must be protected...
I am eager to agree with
the "little guys" who have commented here.
American cultural and
procedural imperialism is absolutely to be avoided, but then so is the
authoritarianism that informs these drafts and runs roughshod over
the rugged individualist.
Parody, satire, and
ridicule should be protected in domain name dispute resolution as they are in
defamation and trademark infringement jurisprudence. I would even
protect "guerrilla consumerism" domain registrations and other forms of
protest.
The man who outlined the
"miller.com" hypothetical has captured the difficulty and absurd results that
can obtain in ICANN attempting to impose a Napoleonic Code-type civil law
regime. Central planning and extraterritorial law enforcement
are generally thought to account for the downfall of the Soviet
system. We like the common law system in the US and Britian,
and we think that the common law system (and it's limits on government power)
is one of the greatest factors in our economic miracle.
Contracting parties should
be able to have a meeting of the minds without the government (or its proxy
ICANN) impairing the liberty to enter into fair contracts. The current registrant
contracts constitute contracts of adhesion anyway since it is a
take-it-or-leave-it deal and there is no other way to register a domain
name. Registrars will not negotiate any of the terms of the
deal.
So in my considered view,
all of these registrant contracts are voidable.
This should be left
to the courts and jurisdiction should be determined under substantive
choice of law principles, not the domicile of the corporation that runs the
index. That's like making every one who gets a defective Danish
pastry sue in Denmark.
If I have a problem with
Sprint or Land's End, I sue them in Florida. Sprint can get sued in
Florida because they do business in Florida. Network Solutions does
"business" in Florida when they send me a bill for a domain name
registration.
Under rules of comity every
state (foreign nation states and US state) must recognize and enforce the
properly adjudged rulings of other states. That makes the law just
and empowers those of us who are NOT multinationals.
If you don't make everyone
get their divorce and child support orders adjudged in Virginia, how can you
make them go there for domain disputes? The logic behind the
direction these deliberations have taken lead us inevitably to a World Court in
Geneva to handle these disputes, which will totally eliminate Pro Se litigants
and the wisdom of the US Constitution.
Maybe I should register the
domain:
while it is still
available, or is it already a felony just to register it?
Signed,
Terry Seale
(c)1999
sealet