On 3/21/2011 4:38 PM, Joly MacFie wrote:
[log in to unmask]" type="cite">On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 5:42 PM, Marc Perkel <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
He has one point I agree with. Why should .XXX cost more than .COM ?


Why not? 

They certainly have higher costs in terms of diligence. And they do have years of litigation to recoup, and, um, I think there are few more .com registrations.

One comment in another thread made me chuckle about the irony of the phrase "intellelctual property" when applied to smut.


BTW I have posted an illustrated version of the board vote at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YidaDxIH_8I


The question about why to charge more isn't "why not" but "why". Why should one kind of business be charged more that another. What you refer to as "smut" is human reproduction without which none of us would be here. We all owe our very existence to "smut".

There is indeed intellectual property associated with "smut". Good porn is not easy to produce and those people work hard for their money. I don't see the difference between that and any other subject matter covered under copyright law. I personally own adult intellectual property, although it's not porn. It's instructional information.

I personally don't see sex as less moral that drilling for oil, running a nuclear power plant, manufacturing guns, or any other business that some people disagree on moral issues. And I thought we were against ICANN becoming the moral police.

The way I see it there has to be a reason for charging more for .xxx and that reason has to be based in some sort of reality and such a test needs to be applied to other similar domains. Also - I don't see the moral difference between these domain names:

sluts.com
sluts.xxx

I don't understand the diligence and cost of litigation argument.

Also in my view .xxx makes life easier. The .xxx people don't want kids and Christians wasting their bandwidth. I think there is a right to have porn and a right to avoid porn. The .xxx is sort of a truth in labeling issue that helps both seekers and avoiders of porn. It's not a final solution. I wouldn't ever want to see laws requiring adult content to have an .xxx listing. But if more of it moved there it would help both sides. Charging more for .xxx helps defeat the purpose of having .xxx in the first place.