Timothe
> -----Original Message-----
>
> The entire discussion about registrant rights has become focused on
> trademarks & their owners to the exclusion of a large part of the
> non-commercial constituency. Your comments are still framed in that
> context. If adopted, they would help around the edges, but the
> individual registrant is still a 5th-class afterthought.
>
You are way, way, way off-base in this accusation. Everything the NCUC has done around trademark-domain name conflicts in the past 15 years has been done precisely to carve out a space for individual rights and individual registrants against excessive claims of TM owners, governments, etc.
Here are some excerpts from the statement Kathy proposed. Did you read it?
"For example, when the final report goes out to the Community with questions of whether the URS (Uniform Rapid Suspension) worked for trademark owners, we also should be asking whether the URS worked for New gTLD Registrants and what obstacles they faced to education and information in responding to URS claims. "
" Should the goal have been only “to reach trademark holders worldwide to inform them of the services related to the Clearinghouse via webinars and Q&F sessions” or should it have been to inform the worldwide community of a massive change in the rules of registration of domain names in the New gTLDs and a new set of protections and notices that ALL registrants should know about and understand. Did the TMCH devote even one second or one dollar to outreach, webinars and Q&A session to explain the impact of the Trademark [Claims] Notice to those receiving it, to answer questions that may arise from ambiguities or the publication of this new type of notice, or to ensure that those registrants who the Trademark Notice was meant to protect were not artificially “chilled” from moving forward with the registration of a domain name if they had the rights to do so."
" Our concern is of course that no education and no information was provided to the global community by ICANN or the TMCH. This has left noncommercial registrants, small businesses, and individuals without the guidance that these rules and policies are designed to protect all legitimate overlapping uses of words, names, phrases, acronyms for future domain names, just as they have been protected for existing ones"
" We request that the questions in the next draft and related reports be expanded to see if the sunrise period gives unfair advantage to trademark owners far outside their categories of goods and services. In cases where a New gTLD caters to .PIZZA should Delta Airlines really have a right of first registration? For New gTLDs and future gTLDs catering to individuals, noncommercial organizations, religious groups, etc., should the Sunrise Period exist at all? "
I could go on, for a long time. To claim that this comment doesn’t take into account the individual registrant is just a false claim and you should withdraw it and acknowledge your error.
--MM
>
> Everything is framed in terms of trademarks and commercial rights.
> There is no place in the DNS where purely non-commercial registrants
> come first and can't be displaced.
>
> NCSG continues to frame 'non-commercial' in terms of non-
> commercial
> services and organizations that can claim trademark, corporate or
> similar protection. 'harvard' is a non-profit corporation. So is the
> Red Cross/Crescent, etc. When we talk about what I call the 'individual
> registrant', we conflate domain names with 'free speech', 'human
> rights'
> - but generally, we assume a blog or other website service. We
> meekly
> accept the proposition that trademarks are valuable, but family names
> aren't. We ignore individuals/families, informal clubs and others who
> can't qualify for a trademark (which must be used in commerce(1).) Or
> can't justify the filing/maintenance/defense fees. And generally don't
> even know enough to copyright their content.
>
> The individual registrant gets, at best the left-overs. And can get
> displaced by trademark priority. E.g. One colleague of mine had
> registered a domain name that he liked because it was a palindrome.
> He
> got a lot of e-mail, and then web traffic on his technical manifesto.
> And got evicted several years later because a pharmaceutical company
> trademarked the name and called in the staff attorneys. His 5-
> character
> palindrome was replaced by a 3-word hyphenated bit of
> techno-cryptography. IIRC, he wasn't allowed to have any 2 of his
> original letters adjacent in the new name...
>
> Individual registrants need:
> o places where their names have priority over trademark and other IP
> rights in names. I've suggested TLDs with such rules, but other
> schemes
> are possible.
> o mechanisms for fair allocations of names in the face of conflict,
> not based on trademarks or commercial IP. This could be FCFS based
> on a
> family name, a given name, use in other contexts, a lottery -- or any of
> a number of schemes that TLDs could compete to develop.
> o freedom from name-squatting and name-sniping -- the typical
> individual registrant can't afford to pay the extortion demanded by the
> squatters, and has no name-based income to offset the cost. (For
> example, one squatter has been holding the .com version of one of my
> names for ransom, suggesting that £5000 might be a starting point for
> negotiation - upwards. "somehow" he grabbed it while I was
> registering
> under another TLD.)
> o affordable conflict resolution.
>
> Under the current rules, even if someone besides me recognized the
> need,
> and had access to the $Ms required to setup one or more TLDs with
> these
> properties, they could not. Because "trademark and IP" priority and
> "squatting is OK, except if it conflicts with established IP" rules
> conflict with these requirements.
>
> I have no problem recognizing the issues and rights of IP holders.
> (Rather to the dismay of some here.) But it's past time to recognize
> that the individual registrants need a place where their issues are
> addressed and their rights assured. That can't happen as long as the
> issues are framed in terms of trademark and IP protection - first and
> everywhere.
>
> > I would truly support your submission of a statement with your
> words
> > -- and all who want to sign on to them. The more the merrier -
> > especially since only trademark owners have responded so far!
>
> I think that approach just supports the 'divide and conquer ' strategy
> of the commercial interests.
>
> If NCSG can't have one voice with many signers, many voices with a
> few
> signers won't have any effect.
>
> I would like to think that after writing on this topic at least a dozen
> times over the past few years, I've sensitized the rest of our
> community
> to the issues. But as usual, it's the last minute and we're responding
> in the framework set by the IP interests.
>
> I probably should stop talking into this particular barrel. The
> acoustics "suck" and it's probably too late in the day for it to make
> any difference.
>
> >
> > Best,
> > Kathy
> >
> >
>
> (1) Yes, this is a simplification. Raising money to deliver charitable
> services, as the United Way does, counts as 'commerce' in this sense.
> But 'tim's family network', used for intra-family communication does
> not. Nor does 'sally's quilting club', which has no dues and just
> shares designs and schedules bees.
>
> Timothe Litt
> ACM Distinguished Engineer
> --------------------------
> This communication may not represent the ACM or my employer's
> views,
> if any, on the matters discussed.
>
>
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