I wonder, is David J. Steele the John Steele of Prenda Law or is this just a weird coincidence?
As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign
41–50 of 74 posts
Re: As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign
#42While this is obviously a perversion of justice, I'm not shedding many tears over shady domain landgrabbers losing their 'property'. It's unfortunate (and clearly shouldn't have been filed under seal) but the histrionic comments on anigbrowl's link about how this is going to kill the domain squatting 'business' just make me think "good."
"So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!" - "Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?" "Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!" - "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them…
That's a great quote, but I'm not sure it really applies here. Both sides are "the law" here. One side is the law (defined by ICANN and enforced by a US court) that allows domains to be taken away. The other is the fourth-amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, which clearly forbids that very same thing. Both sides are the Devil, too. ICANN vs. domain squatters and speculators. Which is more loathsome? Which law to defend? Which malefactor?
Re: As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign
#43Re: As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign
#44Re: As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that we don't even know why they were seized (or how many were seized by each person), it seems like you have an amazing hostility towards domainers in general. What makes you so mad towards them?
Imagine a shopping mall car park where it costs $0.20 a day to park. Except you can't park anywhere near the door, because people turn up at the start of the day, park their cars across three prime spaces, and offer to sell them - for $20. You'd have to be a big fan of the coase theorem to enjoy paying $20 for a $0.20 parking space, when the only thing the seller has done to add value is get in your way.
While this is an entertaining hypothetical, I think Coase would say that you should go & offer the shopping mall $0.50 to rent you the spot. And the price might still end up being $20.
Applicability to domains: maybe they should all be auctioned?
Re: As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign
#46Re: As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign
#47Scenario: A domain is free to register. You register it as per your registrars normal procedure. In some faraway country (say the USA) a bankruptcy court decided that this domain that you just registered was part of the original holdings of the company in bankruptcy. Even though the company (or the receivers) let the registration lapse (presumably because they were not doing too well financially). And so the court wi…
U.S. bankruptcy law gives courts great latitude to reverse transactions involving the property of a bankrupt entity, because a lot of abuse of the bankruptcy system is possible otherwise.
The problem here is actually with VeriSign. Any time you transfer an asset to an entity but retain the right to get it back under certain conditions, you have to think through what will happen if that other party enters into bankruptcy and those assets get sucked into the proceeding. It's wrong for them to assume they can resell the domain name the second it lapses.
Re: As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign
#48Well that can't be good - my "name" on the web can be snatched out from under my feet?
Re: As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that we don't even know why they were seized (or how many were seized by each person), it seems like you have an amazing hostility towards domainers in general. What makes you so mad towards them?
Imagine a shopping mall car park where it costs $0.20 a day to park. Except you can't park anywhere near the door, because people turn up at the start of the day, park their cars across three prime spaces, and offer to sell them - for $20. You'd have to be a big fan of the coase theorem to enjoy paying $20 for a $0.20 parking space, when the only thing the seller has done to add value is get in your way.
Or - if you simply look at it as real estate - they bought that land when the supermarket was being built (and no one else thought it was valuable).
In this space - it's akin much more to having parking spaces near a sporting event or concert. In which case - there's lot of happy people willing to pay $20 for the privilege of parking.
Also - you should know that pricing goods based on "what they cost" isn't the proper way to valuate a property, service, etc. If that was the case, every user past 1,000 in most SAAS apps should just ask for their subscription to be free.
Re: As Many as 5K .Com’s Taken Away by Sealed Court Order by Verisign
#50Everything to do with the DNS system is so corrupt and shady. Half the domains dropping in the new GTLD process are "unavailable", "registered", etc. We tried to get an exact trademark for one of our companies in the new GTLD system during the Sunrise phase only to be told by Gandi that the new GTLD owner rejected it. We pushed it pretty hard and had a back and forth with Gandi's CEO who was pretty much on our side b…
To be fair - you were dealing with Demand Media :(