One thing I'm not sure about is this:

LIRs that receive a re-allocation from another LIR cannot re-allocate complete or partial blocks of the same address space to another LIR within 24 months of receiving the re-allocation.

Interesting. Since this policy seems to be saying that it will be legitimate for LIRs to trade addresse blocks, has anyone investigated whether or not restrictions, such as those above, would be considered illegal restraint of trade? In addition, the fact that RIPE allows LIRs to trade addresses directly suggests that RIPE now considers IPv4 addresses to be property. What will be the legal impact on the clause in the IPv6 policy which says that IPv6 addresses are not property?

(*) I know the RIRs shy away from such terms for various reasons mostly to do with fear of government involvement, but I propose we choose to be brave and use the terminology that best matches intuition.

If RIPE begins to treat IPv4 addresses in exactly the same way they would be treated under a lease agreement, then it is possible that the courts will decide that RIPE is actually leasing the IPv4 address blocks even if RIPE avoids that language. Imagine that I offer you an educational experience in which you attend my business premises every day and perform various tasks for the business as directed by me. And further imagine that I place a certain amount of cash in a certain desk drawer every Friday with the understanding that you can use this cash in any way that you wish whether personal or otherwise. Does this mean that our arrangement is immune to the laws regarding employment, and income tax withholding, etc.? Probably not. Even if we don't call it a "job" and it is still considered to be a job under the law. I still fail to see any benefits at all, either to RIPE or to LIRs, from making it possible for LIRs to exchange address blocks first, then tell RIPE second. The current situation, where you tell RIPE first (return unused blocks, ask for more addresses) and receive addresses second, seems to work fine today and there is no reason that it will not work 5 years from now. --Michael Dillon

michael.dillon@bt.com wrote:

...

One thing I'm not sure about is this:

LIRs that receive a re-allocation from another LIR cannot re-allocate complete or partial blocks of the same address space to another LIR within 24 months of receiving the re-allocation.

Interesting. Since this policy seems to be saying that it will be legitimate for LIRs to trade addresse blocks, has anyone investigated whether or not restrictions, such as those above, would be considered illegal restraint of trade?

Ultimate acceptance of any policy rests with the RIPE NCC board, who would be consulting counsel on this one, I suspect. Since no one on this list is a lawyer, could we avoid uninformed legal speculation? Of course *if* there is a lawyer reading this list, feel free to give us the benefit of your opinions Nigel Nigel

Michael, On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 09:34:36AM -0000, michael.dillon@bt.com wrote:

The policy proposal that we are discussing, wants to make a fundamental change to the character of IP addresses. I think it is a good idea for the whole community, not just the board, to get some expert legal input into the decision making process. As long as IP addresses are not property, we can regulate them strictly and arbitrarily. But if the character of the addresses becomes more property-like, by allowing them to be traded, does this create more limits on what RIPE can do in its policy?

As far as I can see, we need expert legal advice to find out the answers to such questions.

I disagree. In fact, I can already predict what the lawyers will say: - We're not sure, because this is all new. - But be scared - very scared! - And you definitely need more lawyers. So, I suggest we should NOT worry about whether or not IP addresses are property, but rather adopt policies that allow ISPs and other LIRs to get on with the business of running the Internet. As I said before, I support the proposal. :) -- Shane

michael.dillon@bt.com wrote:

Please do not make personal attacks on people that you do not know. My question was based on INFORMED legal speculation. I've done a considerable amount of research and thinking about these issues.

My comment was not personal. It was intended to try and contain the sort of mobius discussion we have seen on the PPML list, before it started on this list too. Anybody that wishes to take expert legal advice is of course free to do so at any time. Nigel

michael.dillon@bt.com wrote:

Of course. But how does the RIPE community as a whole get expert legal advice prior to the board's review of policy? In other words a proactive type of advice rather than a reactive cover-your-behind type of legal review.

That is actually quite an interesting and far reaching question and applies to any resources requested by the RIPE community. The RIPE community has, of course, no monetary resources of its own to call on. Where such resources are required, the RIPE NCC has traditionally provided them. I think what you are asking is that either the RIPE NCC pays for legal advice to be given to the RIPE community or that some lawyer be found to give pro bono advice. Ultimately the Board decides on whether RIPE NCC resources should be allocated to the community, of course, although mostly it just passes them through on the nod and this could be no exception. However, I do share Shane's pessimism about the likely outcome of involving lawyers.

Perhaps if we ask for such advice on the list, then the meeting organizers might take the time to find a legal expert who can make a presentation at a future RIPE meeting. That way everybody can benefit from the information.

We can but hope. Nigel

It doesn't. IP addresses are still used to number things on the Internet.

Right now IP address allocations/assignments are tied to a hierarchy with RIPE (or another RIR) at its root. RIPE gives blocks to LIRs who give blocks to end users. When an end user or LIR no longer needs the block, it is returned back up the hierarchy. This proposal changes that and allows address block holders to transfer them to some other organization. This makes addresses more like physical property which is passed from one person to another without any prior relationships. And I believe that it is inevitable that once this is allowed, transfers will be made without following RIPE rules. If the recipient runs into difficulty in using their new addresses and perceives RIPE to be the problem, then lawsuits will be raised against RIPE for interfering in the trading of addresses. I know that the proposal does not discuss selling addresses like property, however this RIPE proposal is just one of several which are before APNIC and ARIN. The people who have originated the ideas behind this proposal, have talked about an open IP address market for several years. So even though this proposal is only a first step, and does not fully create an open IP address trading market, I believe that it is important to consider where this may lead, before accepting the proposal. If, like me, you do not want to go all the way towards an open market for buying and selling IP addresses, then you might want to make the same decision as I have made, and oppose this proposal as unneccessary. I have no doubt that my company, and many others, will return their unused IPv4 allocations to RIPE when the IPv6 rollout makes these IPv4 addresses unneccessary. To do otherwise would pose a significant risk of legal action because it would constitute restraint of trade, i.e. punishing smaller competitors by witholding IPv4 addresses that those competitors would use. I don't believe that my company, or most of the other large European telecoms companies, would see any significant incentive in being able to charge a fee for transfering an IPv4 allocation to a 3rd party. The real incentive is to avoid the risk of regulatory and legal action by returning the unneeded resources, and competing based on the quality of our services. I believe that this incentive has a much larger financial impact than any trading system could possibly have, to the extent that I expect larger ISPs to bend over backwards to help IPv4-dependent ISPs use the inevitably small block sizes that will be available. I do NOT speak for the ETNO, however I am aware that the large European telecoms companies who form ETNO, have come to a consensus that the development of a market for IP addresses whould be discouraged. Anyone who was at RIPE 55 will have seen this presentation: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-55/presentations/mcfadden-etno.pd f I believe that allowing the transfer of allocation directly between LIRs is a step in development of a market for IP addresses, and for this reason we should reject the proposal entirely. Currently RIPE plays a unique and trusted role in the area of IP address management, where companies who compete vigorously in the marketplace can fairly and openly cooperate with each other, and with non-comercial users of the resource (IP addresses) on which their networks depend. We trust RIPE. There is no need to enable transfers that do not have RIPE as an intermediary. In particular, as IPv4 exhaustion begins to pinch us, it is highly likely that there will be two or more organizations that want to receive the free address block. We don't want to be making decisions on who receives the addresses that we free up. We would rather return them to RIPE and have those decisions made impartially. --Michael Dillon

I wish I could share your faith. I'm very sure that the powers that decide in your company will recognize the market value of IPv4 address blocks, as soon as the addresses run out, and find a way to make money out of them. Especially large companies are expert at moving assets to daughter companies and selling those.

I think the ETNO consensus shows that the large companies running IP networks in Europe do not think that way about IP addresses. In particular, the effort required (and associated cost) in order to move IP assets into daughter companies, is not really justifiable for a flash-in-the-pan market. Any market for IPv4 addresses will only exist for a short time, and high prices which would justify this type of sale will exist for an even shorter time. It is just not that expensive to transition to IPv6. Most of the cost nowadays, lies in development of a fully transparent IPv4-IPv6 Internet access service. That work is now being done openly by many companies, and when the IPv4 shortage starts to be felt, most companies will be in a position to roll out IPv6 without excessive costs. --Michael Dillon

On 19.03 18:03, Nigel Titley wrote:

michael.dillon@bt.com wrote:

...

...

One thing I'm not sure about is this:

LIRs that receive a re-allocation from another LIR cannot re-allocate complete or partial blocks of the same address space to another LIR within 24 months of receiving the re-allocation.

Interesting. Since this policy seems to be saying that it will be legitimate for LIRs to trade addresse blocks, has anyone investigated whether or not restrictions, such as those above, would be considered illegal restraint of trade?

Ultimate acceptance of any policy rests with the RIPE NCC board, who would be consulting counsel on this one, I suspect. Since no one on this list is a lawyer, could we avoid uninformed legal speculation?

[speaking as a private citizen and not as RIPE NCC staffer] In my reality that is not quite right and it is important to be clear: The policies we re discussing are made by RIPE using its PDP which is described in http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-428.html . There is no direct involvement of the RIPE NCC other than providing support. There is no involvement of the RIPE NCC board other than its members ability to participate in a personal capacity. Once a policy is made which involves implementation by the RIPE NCC, the RIPE NCC and its board have the reponsibility for the implementation and the responsibility to review whether he policy can be implemented in terms of operational resources or other significant concerns such as a policiy's legality or the possibiliy of successful litigation against the RIPE NCC etc. pp. Some recent examples have shown that we may want to amend the PDP to eplicitly include legal and operational reviews by the RIPE NCC at appropriate stages in order to check these things early on rather than after the fact. Personally I am in favour of that. Let us learn the useful things from ARIN's PDP. ;-) However we should be clear that the purview of the RIPE NCC board is the RIPE NCC and that does not include policy development wihtin RIPE. Daniel

On 27.05 15:24, Nigel Titley wrote:

... I'm not entirely sure through what formal channel this feedback should come (if indeed there is a formal channel), but I have taken the step of making sure that future board meetings should include a section on current policies under development so that we can spot them coming.

That is very appropriate. My suggestion for the procedureal channel is to strengthen the operational reviews during the discussion and review phase in the PDP and making them explicit in the PDP document. There should be both an operational and a legal review by the RIPE NCC. The legal review could be defined broader than just looking at the impact on the RIPE NCC. ARIN's review procedures could be considered as examples for this. I proposed this at the WG chairs meeting in Berlin, but I am afraid this may have been drowned by the concrete matter at hand.

Hope this clarifies my previous remarks

It indeed does. I knew what you meant but I found it important to prevent any mis-interpretations. Daniel