So what if the store owners change a lot? They buy the road with the store from the previous owners. And if you paid taxes to build the store keepers road, he paid taxes to build the road in front of your own residence that is your property. There is plenty of urban road for everyone, and it evens itself out in the end.
From American Road & Transportation Builders Association:
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO BUILD A MILE OF ROAD? There is no single answer to this question. Construction costs per mile of road depend on location, terrain, type of construction, number of lanes, lane width, durability, number of bridges, etc. It costs more to build a new road than to rehabilitate a road or add lanes. Roads cost more to build in urban areas than in rural areas. Roads in mountainous terrain are more expensive to build than roads on flat land. Nonetheless, some states have developed cost models to guide planning for their highway construction programs. These models give a ballpark figure for various kinds of highway improvements. The following are some examples: Construct a new 2-lane undivided road - about $2-$3 million per mile in rural areas, about $4-5 million in urban areas. Construct a new 4-lane highway -- $4-$6 million per mile in rural and suburban areas, $8-$10 million per mile in urban areas. Construct a new 6-lane Interstate highway - about $7 million per mile in rural areas, $12 million or more per mile in urban areas. Mill and resurface a 4-lane road - about $1.25 million per mile. Expand an Interstate Highway from 4 lanes to 6 lanes - about $4 million per mile. The Florida Department of Transportation has published its generic cost per mile information for 2009 online. The Arkansas Highway Department's estimated cost per mile for 2005 is available online. Highway construction costs have risen about 25 percent since this was posted.
There is no single answer to this question. Construction costs per mile of road depend on location, terrain, type of construction, number of lanes, lane width, durability, number of bridges, etc. It costs more to build a new road than to rehabilitate a road or add lanes. Roads cost more to build in urban areas than in rural areas. Roads in mountainous terrain are more expensive to build than roads on flat land. Nonetheless, some states have developed cost models to guide planning for their highway construction programs. These models give a ballpark figure for various kinds of highway improvements. The following are some examples:
The Florida Department of Transportation has published its generic cost per mile information for 2009 online.
The Arkansas Highway Department's estimated cost per mile for 2005 is available online.
Highway construction costs have risen about 25 percent since this was posted.
I don't think it's clear that store owners have paid possibly tens or hundreds of thousands in dollars in taxes dedicated to roads when they buy the store. I think what you are proposing is more just than what we have currently, but I don't think it's necessarily the right answer in all cases.
gotlucky:If Ron Paul wanted to organize a parade on Main Street, he would need to go through government. Maybe we would prefer that the store owners are the ones who own the road in front of their stores, maybe it wouldn't be the case. Who knows? What we know is that the government does own the road, and if you want to use it for something other than driving, you need to go through them. With your position, you would be accusing Ron Paul of using the government to aggress against the people who own buildings on the road. It is not clear that they would be the legitimate owners, and it is perfectly reasonable and not contrary to libertarianism for Ron Paul to request the use of roads from the government for a parade.
Nope nope nope. You had a decent analogy until this part. And it's the only one that matters, because of course this is where you apply your "roads" to this actual situation.
You're leaving out the fact that someone else is already conducting a parade down Main Street. And they did go through government. They did not sneak around and fraudulently change some schedule of events so that they could appear as reserving the street when someone else already had it. They got it as legitimately as possible in the illegitimate setup.
You're arguing that you planned a parade, and even after you went through the proper channels, got your request approved, prepped all the floats, set up all the vender carts and various ancillary attributes, sent out all the flyers, set up all the billboards, paid for all the marketing, and made sure everyone knew your parade was going to be at this location...that I should be able to come in and have the government revoke your standing, and shut down your parade, so that I can take it over.
...And that I would be just fine in doing so, because, well, you have no better claim to the road than I do, and the government has the final say so, since they, kind of de facto own the road through fiat (and force/coercion). So as long as I can convince them that I should get the road, you can fuck off.
And how am I going to convince them that I have a better claim to the road (even though I admit that my claim is no better than anyone else's)? By asserting that I have a common law ownership of the air in the area, because people around Main Street know how I smell. I plan to make the case that, because people know how I smell, and the air around Main Street kind of smells like me, that actually means that I have a greater claim to be conducting my parade on the street than you.
Yeah. There's absolutely nothing unlibertarian about any of that. It's all right up there with asserting a claim to a right to live.
And it's actually comical how you don't even realize how you're trying to argue two sides of this. You to recognize the reality that "they don't have to use ICANN's list", and you attempt to use this to make the foundation of your argument in favor of Ron Paul doing what he's doing (i.e. make it so that it's not unlibertarian),"...but in the same post you basically admit the domain is essentially a rivalrous good, because "almost everybody uses the same list of root servers." And you back this up with your street analogy.
Again, ICANN is an organization basically created through government, supported by government, largely (essentially) run by government, and basically backed by government...which holds the position it does only because of government...and because of all this, for all intents and purposes, ICANN is government.
What your argument basically boils down to is:
"Hey, if people don't like the way the government is handling the roads (and deciding who gets to use them), they could always just fly. So there's basically nothing wrong with John Q. Moneybags-Politicalconnections petitioning the government to forcibly remove that old lady from her house so that he can build his stadium. (With taxpayer subsidies of course.)
I mean, she has no greater claim to the land than he does. Maybe we would prefer that the person who lives on the land is the one who owns it, maybe it wouldn't be the case. Who knows? What we know is that the government does own the land, and if you want to use it for something, you need to go through them. So as long as Moneybags-Politicalconnections goes through the proper city councils and zoning channels, it's all good. Nothing unlibertarian about that. Dos are da rulez."
Speaking of absurd...
lol @ your reading comprehension
I don't think it's clear that store owners have paid possibly tens or hundreds of thousands in dollars in taxes dedicated to roads when they buy the store.
I'm assuming the buildings were there long before pavement, as is the case everywhere I look where a live. It's not the fault of the store owners the municipality poured asphalt onto their land. So actually scratch the bit where I talk about taxes myself, in total.
The whole thing is a mess.
gotlucky:lol @ your reading comprehension
Stellar argument.
Truly spoken like someone who has no rebuttal.
There's no need to rebut. Anyone who cares about the discussion can read for themselves.
You're leaving out the fact that someone else is already conducting a parade down Main Street. And they did go through government. They did not sneak in to some schedule of events and fraudulently change it so that they could appear as reserving the street when someone else already had it. They got it as legitimately as possible in the illegitimate setup. You're arguing that you planned a parade, and even after you went through the proper channels, got your request approved, prepped all the floats, set up all the vender carts and various ancillary attributes, sent out all the flyers, set up all the billboards, paid for all the marketing, and made sure everyone knew your parade was going to be at this location...that I should be able to come in and have the government revoke your standing, and shut down your parade, so that I can take it over.
But what if we say that someone else is not just conducting a parade down Main Street, instead they bought a licence to be the only ones able to conduct a parade down Main Street forever for as long as they cough up 20 dollars per annum? Wouldn't that cast a different light on the situation, while making the analogy stil more apt? PS, this is ridicilous, all this Main Street talk, it's like you want to make go listen to some Bob Seger.
gotlucky:There's no need to rebut. Anyone who cares about the discussion can read for themselves.
Oh well then by all means would you be so kind enough as to explain what it is I got wrong?
Marko:But what if we say that someone else is not just conducting a parade down Main Street, instead they bought a licence to be the only ones able to conduct the parade down Main Street forever for as long as they cough up 20 dollars per annum? Wouldn't that cast a different light on the situation, while making the analogy stil more apt?
Sure why not. You said yourself it's a shitty analogy. I didn't come up with it. gotlucky did. I was simply using his shitty analogy as best I could to give a more realistic description of what's going on here.
So go ahead and visually replace the appropriate words in my post to "parade license". Now what. That does nothing to change my point as far as I can see. It certainly does nothing to argue that Paul should be able to use the government to revoke the license and have such an act be considered libertarian. (Or at least not unlibertarian, which is basically what this whole thing is about.)
So go ahead and visually replace the appropriate words in my post to "parade license". Now what. That does nothing to change my point as far as I can see.
Marko:But if somebody precludes me from ever marching down a street in a parade because they made a deal with a government for the latter to have their back I can be righftully pissed. I won't consider their privilege to bar me from ever marching is their 'justly acquired property in an illegitimate system'. Do you?
I never said anything about "justly acquired property." You're putting words in my mouth. The closest thing I said to that was "They got it as legitimately as possible in the illegitimate setup."
And it doesn't bar you from ever marching. That's more bullshit. It bars you from marching on that street only, and even then, only if I don't want you to. It is essentially as if I own the street. You are free to negotiate with me on when or how you may use the street, and you are free to buy the street from me. Nothing "bars" you from marching down that street permanently, let alone marching at all.
And you can quite easily "own" your own street that you are free to march on all you want.
Sure, if you want to get to the very root of it, I might agree with you,
"One has the ability to map their site to ronpaul.com which they should have, and the monopoly on being the only ones to be able to do so, which they shouldn't have. RP on the other hand doesn't have the ability to map his site to ronpaul.com, which he should have, but also doesn't have the ability to preclude all people other than himself from doing so, which he should not have."
But bringing it back to the land analogy, all of this land in the United States isn't exactly "justly aquired". Me buying a piece of property from the government or from some descendent of some European settler who "homesteaded" the land after it's original inhabitants were murdered doesn't exactly give me full "just" rights to it. But where do you draw the line, and how far back does it have to go? Again, it's still the eminent domain argument. You don't have a "legitimate" claim to the land, so as long as I can convince the de facto "owner" that I should get it instead of you, you can fuck off?
Surely you don't want to go down that road. (Parden the pun.)
The whole situation really boils down to the fact that a single (essentially centralized) master root server exists, whereas in a free society, it might not. That is the basis for your claim that a domain registrant "ha[s] the ability to preclude all people other than himself from [mapping his site to a specific domain], which he should not have."
But the fact of the matter is, that situation could exist in a free society...it could feasibly come about that a single master root server was the most practical (perhaps like a universal money is most practical). And in that case, "there would be no reputation rights, no IP law, no trademark, no copyright, no right of publicity, so I doubt the private companies running the internet infrastructure would ever have a quasi-IP-based domain name dispute policy".
So either way, you have no leg to stand on in defense of Ron Paul here.
You've got a system of de facto scarcity of domains, which it is debatable whether such a scarcity would exist in a free market. If it wouldn't exist in a free market, then you essentially come to an eminent domain argument...where you have to draw a line of assertion as to when "legitimate" ownership started. In that case, if you want to side with Ron Paul, then you have to defend Mr. Moneybags-Politicalconnections and his takeover of Grandma Jones' cottage to build his stadium, because in both situations, you're basically resting on the "nobody has a better claim than anybody else, so it's basically whoever can convince the government to give it to him" argument.
On the other hand, if such a scarcity of domains would exist in a free market, then you come to a legitimate dispute situation...which would have to be resolved, but which would have no quorum for reputation rights, or any sort of IP rights (no trademark, no copyright, no right of publicity, etc.)...meaning the grounds on which Ron Paul is making his claim would have no standing. They are illegitimate.
Let's also not forget RP had the domain and let his registration expire. One could argue he had his shot in this monopoly system and gave it up. Even if you want to argue "this is the system", that still offers no reason he should be able to take back a position he forfeited.
And once again, the bottom line is:
Is it fair to say that Ron Paul is using government to steal from his supporters?
"Yes."
Domain names are like phone numbers. You don't own your phone number. The only property that is owned are the phones and the infrastructure that connects everything. You contract with a phone company to connect you to the network and provide you with phone service. Let's say you contract with Verizon and they give you a number 1-800-555-1234. You don't own that number. Verizon doesn't own that number. It's just a number that everyone uses in order to process phone calls so that they go to you when someone dials 1-800-555-1234. It wouldn't do you much good if Verizon was a company that didn't recognize the numbers that were given out by other companies. If AT&T, Sprint, etc., all used 1-800-555-1234 to refer to another phone, then that doesn't do you much good.
ICANN is a phonebook. It doesn't own your computer or the infrastructure that connects computers and servers throughout the world. You contact a registrar and they register a domain name for you with ICANN. No one else can register that domain name with ICANN. This doesn't make your domain name your property any more than it makes your phone number your property. When you type "www.google.com" into your browser, your computer connects to your ISP's DNS servers to lookup what computer to connect you to. Verizon doesn't have to connect you to Google's servers. It could connect you to "www.verizon.net" if it wanted. But that doesn't do you much good. Verizon gets its DNS list from ICANN, so when you lookup "www.google.com" with your browser, you get Google's website.
These guys registered "www.ronpaul.com" with ICANN. That does not make it their property. All it does is mean that whoever uses the ICANN list to translate "www.ronpaul.com" into an IP gets the particular website associated with the ICANN list. Ron Paul is contesting this with the rules of ICANN. It would be as if Ron Paul used the rules of Verizon to transfer 1-800-555-1234 from you to him. You don't own that number. You don't have to use Verizon.
Now I'm going to repost Clayton's repost of Lew Rockwell's points:
'RonPaul'.com Posted by Lew Rockwell on February 13, 2013 08:31 AM There is so much disinformation on this issue that I will probably have to post more than once, but here are a few points: --Ron is not using the State to acquire RonPaul.com. He could have brought a lawsuit in US government courts, but he did not. He is seeking to have ICANN enforce its own rules against cybersquatting, including the rule against registering a famous person’s name and making money off it. Anyone registering a URL agrees to keep all the rules, just as he must pay a recurring fee. A URL is not private property in the normal sense. It is a license, and ICANN is a private, non-profit organization. --Ron is not calling on the UN. ICANN has four approved arbitration organizations. Because the RP.com guys registered Ron's name in Australia, the international arbitration option must be used. Yes, it is associated with the UN. Too bad, but one must play the cards one is dealt. The UN itself is not involved, though note—whatever else is wrong with it—the UN is not a State. --Why did Ron wait so long to bring this claim? He did not feel he could do so as a public official. Once he became a private citizen again, he was freed. --This fight is not about so-called intellectual property, since it involves private agreements. But if it were, must one agree with Murray Rothbard--who discussed IP more than 50 years ago--to be a libertarian? I agree with Murray, but IP is hardly a make or break issue. Certainly Murray did not see it as such. In the same sense, one need not be an anarcho-capitalist to be a libertarian, though, like Murray, I am one. One can be a constitutionalist or otherwise believe in limited government. Oh, and need I note that Murray loved and admired Ron? --Is Ron "attacking his own supporters" by his action? Apparently, the RP.com people have never given a dime to any of his campaigns nor educational efforts. Instead, they are attacking Ron. Some supporters. But it will not work. And it will soon be over, freeing Ron from this distraction as he steps up his fight for freedom. Really steps it up, in historic ways.
'RonPaul'.com Posted by Lew Rockwell on February 13, 2013 08:31 AM
There is so much disinformation on this issue that I will probably have to post more than once, but here are a few points: --Ron is not using the State to acquire RonPaul.com. He could have brought a lawsuit in US government courts, but he did not. He is seeking to have ICANN enforce its own rules against cybersquatting, including the rule against registering a famous person’s name and making money off it. Anyone registering a URL agrees to keep all the rules, just as he must pay a recurring fee. A URL is not private property in the normal sense. It is a license, and ICANN is a private, non-profit organization. --Ron is not calling on the UN. ICANN has four approved arbitration organizations. Because the RP.com guys registered Ron's name in Australia, the international arbitration option must be used. Yes, it is associated with the UN. Too bad, but one must play the cards one is dealt. The UN itself is not involved, though note—whatever else is wrong with it—the UN is not a State. --Why did Ron wait so long to bring this claim? He did not feel he could do so as a public official. Once he became a private citizen again, he was freed. --This fight is not about so-called intellectual property, since it involves private agreements. But if it were, must one agree with Murray Rothbard--who discussed IP more than 50 years ago--to be a libertarian? I agree with Murray, but IP is hardly a make or break issue. Certainly Murray did not see it as such. In the same sense, one need not be an anarcho-capitalist to be a libertarian, though, like Murray, I am one. One can be a constitutionalist or otherwise believe in limited government. Oh, and need I note that Murray loved and admired Ron? --Is Ron "attacking his own supporters" by his action? Apparently, the RP.com people have never given a dime to any of his campaigns nor educational efforts. Instead, they are attacking Ron. Some supporters. But it will not work. And it will soon be over, freeing Ron from this distraction as he steps up his fight for freedom. Really steps it up, in historic ways.
None of that does anything to really refute what I said. (But it does kind of illustrate how shitty your analogy was.)
And thanks for reposting Rockwell. I just love reading how I should agree with what Ron Paul is doing in 2013 because a man who died seventeen years ago "loved and admired" him.
lol @ your reading comprehension.
I'm through talking about this with you. You can learn to read and process what's been said, or you can continue being ignorant. Anyone who cares about the topic can read for themselves.
I knew you'd resort to some non-response. I just didn't realize it would be the exact same one.
If you actually had an actual defense to your support of Ron Paul, you'd address the explication made instead of continuing to simply give a DNS system overview as if anyone here didn't understand it.
It seems to me it's either the eminent domain situation, or the IP situation. Go ahead and take your pick. Which statist institution would you like to defend?
My biggest problem with this is that if ICANN was a private institution in a free market then I wouldn't consider this theft. Just a really daft contract that the holder of the domain name had agreed to. I mean, basically anyone who did business would them would be in a permanent bind, since they could never be sure whether someone else could put in a better claim than them.
You're basically signing a contract in regards to a traffic sign company to put up a sign that points to your shop with a specific sentence on the sign, and in the contract they specify that if someone else asks them to point the sign in another direction then there's a chance they will.
My biggest problem with this is that if ICANN was a private institution in a free market then I wouldn't consider this theft.
Precisely. In that case, it couldn't possibly be considered theft. But it doesn't immediately follow that since it's not "purely private", that therefore this is theft. What people - commoners, media pundits, security specialists, politicians, etc. etc. - frequently do, is they unjustifiably extend the metaphors by which we discuss Internet phenomena. In the process, they forget that they are just metaphors.
There actually isn't that much about the Internet which is virtual and "property-like". And what little there is, is the creation of the ICANN system and the giant telecoms who are trying to create a massive "backbone" through which the vast majority of traffic flows... so they can control it. Mostly, the Internet is just a digital packet relay and switching system. Monkey-see, monkey say. Each router or "hop" receives a packet and forwards it to the next "hop", unaltered. The only processing required is that the router will look up the packet's destination IP in its routing table to choose which of the destination routers it has a connection with to forward the packet to. As far as the "infrastructure" goes, that's basically all there is to the Internet. What makes it complicated is that there are zillions of routers owned by many entities, most of them private.
So, the routers are privately owned. The contents of the routing table is ultimately the decision of each router's owner. The domain-name system is just a network of online servers dedicated to translating URLs (human readable) to IPs (machine readable). DNS does not even control the routing of packets, which is what makes things like OpenDNS possible. The DNS servers, in turn, are privately owned - though the vast majority are ICANN-compliant and no DNS that is not ICANN-compliant will ever be consulted by your computer unless you specifically configure it to do so. Nonetheless, to comply or not to comply is the decision of the DNS server's owner.
Kinsella once used the phrase "contract with the Internet" in the above video. Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue. If not, he gravely misunderstands the nature of the Internet. You cannot have a "contract with the Internet"... there's no actual party "the Internet", so it would be a contract with nothing and no one. This is an essential point because - to the extent that the Internet is free of government interference - its norms are a lot like language norms. They are binding but not because there is anyone in particular who enforces them. It's just that no one will play with you unless you follow the rules. And since no one gets to set the rules, the rules are just whatever everyone happens to be doing.
Such emergent order is actually more stable than its hierarchical counterpart. ICANN/IANA is an attempt to apply hierarchical control through the DNS system and IP-mapping. It's like having a dictionary written by a government-created private entity. Who made them God that they can dictate to us what words we can and cannot use? After all, the routing tables and DNS servers (and local computers which may have cached copies) are the private property of their respective owners. But what we see happening is that in the vast majority of the Internet - those portions over which the Establishment has so far managed to keep little control - the more natural emergent order expresses itself and flourishes, essentially conflict free.
Clayton -
Thank you for setting the record straight. It was not my intention to be misleading. I needed to put it into my sentence and felt that was actually an equivalent to what you said. Apparently not...
Clayton:Kinsella once used the phrase "contract with the Internet" in the above video. Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue. If not, he gravely misunderstands the nature of the Internet.
Um. Let's put that in context:
"I think that owning a domain is not the same as owning a physical object like a house, but lets think about what contracts are...contracts — as Rothbard himself showed in his chapter on contracts in The Ethics of Liberty — a contract is just the way the owner of a scarce resource exercises his rights, either to transfer ownership, or to have a contract with someone to agree on how they can use it. So when you have a "contract with the Internet", the Internet is a network of physical connections that are owned by different infrastructure and "backbone" providers and people like this; when you enter into a contract with these people, that ends up resulting in your contractual right — which is distributed across a group of people — to control a certain ISP, that is, a certain numerical identifier or address, and to give it a certain name. And those are scarce, in the same sense that they are unique, right? I mean every domain is unique, that's why they can reach you by typing 'adamvstheman.com' instead of they reach 5 different potential sites...they only reach one.
The problem is that in a totally free society, when you have a private Internet, there would be no trademark law [...] so there's no way that these Internet service companies would force you to abide by dispute resolution rules which would transfer your domain to someone based upon similar names, or something like that." [Which of course, is the basis of Ron Paul's claim on the domain. Kinsella then goes on to describe how ICANN came about, and how it was given the authority it has, and how it was required to adopt these UDRP rules to get that authority.]
Othat than the fact that domain names are only de facto unique as opposed to completely unique, please explain what Kinsella got wrong here, and better yet, explain how it changes the argument and why what Ron Paul is doing is not something that is essentially unlibertarian, or at least, against libertarian principles.
I also find it interesting you have failed to address the explanation I laid out in this post. Please demonstrate what it is I got wrong about the Internet, and/or the breakdown of what the issue boils down to.
You can find anything you want to be interesting but:
a) That post was not originally addressed to me
b) I don't respond to everything in a thread... nobody does
c) I'm already sick of this thread as I announced above
Okie dokey...
Clayton, what say you to the contention that: the whole situation really boils down to the fact that a single (essentially centralized) master root server exists, whereas in a free society, it might not. I find that that is the basis for Marko's claim that a domain registrant "ha[s] the ability to preclude all people other than himself from [mapping his site to a specific domain], which he should not have." You seem to agree with this claim.
So it seems to me, to defend Ron Paul here, you either have to be ready and willing to defend eminent domain, or intellectual property law.
1) Please demonstrate what it is I got wrong about the Internet, and/or the above breakdown of what the issue boils down to.
2) Please explain what Kinsella got wrong about the Internet, and how it changes the argument and why what Ron Paul is doing is not something that is essentially unlibertarian, or at least, against libertarian principles.
These are also directed at you, gotlucky.
@ Marko
If I am feezing in water along with another guy who is the son of an MP, and then a government aircraft flies overhead and drops a tiny taxpayer-funded raft for the other guy to use to save himself, then I don't give a crap, if the government employees who dropped the raft intended it for the son of the MP and not me. I am inclined to wrestle it away from the other guy, even if he was able to swam to it before me, by the virtue of the plane dropping it nearer to him than me. I won't say my doing so is justified, but it certainly isn't unjustified either. F him. I don't see any reason he is more entitled to live than I am, by the virtue of the government having his back and not mine.
Ok, you sold me in this case. But what if you and the other survivor are just regular guys fighting over the life raft? If Joe Blow gets to the raft first, can you take it from him? That seems unjustifiable to me. To restate, isn't unjust property really a type of unowned property? Isn't pseudo-property (caused by artificial scarcity) still homesteadable?
Really? If I'm so far off base, it would seem you would be able to jump all over and pick my assessment to shreds. (And be quite happy to do it.) But neither you Clayton, nor you gotlucky has even begun to address the basis of my assessment...nor even defend your claims/implications that I and Kinsella don't know something about, or got something wrong about the Internet.
Can you not demonstrate what it is I and/or Kinsella got wrong about the Internet, and/or the above breakdown of what the issue boils down to?
By all means, tell me exactly what you don't think I/we understand about the Internet, and where we're wrong.
[chatter following post split to here]
+1 Clayton for all your posts in this thread. How about turning them into a Voluntarist Reader article?
My initial reaction to this was the same as John James’. Wenzel’s and (especially) Rockwell's defenses are weak, but having read Clayton’s posts on this, I have changed my mind. I now don’t see anything unlibertarian about what Ron Paul is doing here. All talk of “owning”, “homesteading”, “trading” or “stealing” a domain name is misguided, because it presupposes that a name is something that can be owned, and all anti-IP libertarians know that this is not the case. A claim to own a name, a pattern, or any other idea, is just a mischievous way for creators of names/patterns/ideas to claim ownership of physical objects containing or using that name/pattern/idea.
A domain name can’t be owned (or homesteaded or traded or stolen) because it isn’t a physical object. This isn’t a property conflict, and it has little to do with IP. The dispute here is that we have two parties trying to influence the policy-interpretation of a private (albeit government-privileged) institution. There is nothing unlibertarian about petitioning a private organisation to make a policy-interpretation decision in your favor.
The rules of ICANN resemble the principles of libertarianism (homesteading and voluntary exchange), but this is only a resemblance. In general, ICANN operates a first-come-first-served policy when it comes to initially registering domain names, but this isn't homesteading except in a metaphorical sense, because nothing is passing from a state of being unowned to a state of being owned. Because domain names are not (cannot be) owned, the act of “trading” domain names is similarly a metaphor only. When one individual “buys” a domain name from another individual, what is happening is that money is paid so that the “seller” renounces his registration with ICANN so that the “buyer” can then register with ICANN. ICANN’s policies allow this to be done, which makes its policy resemble the libertarian principle of voluntary exchange, but this too is just a metaphor.
According to it's own policy, in exceptional cases ICANN can decide to terminate one individual’s registration of a domain name and allow another individual to register it. Part of the contract agreed to by the first registrant explained that this could be done and outlined the exceptional circumstances in which it can be done. The only question is about whether these specific circumstances are exceptional, as outlined in the contract - that is what this dispute is about. Based on my assessment of the strength of the complaint, informed by Stephan Kinsella’s expert opinion, I believe that this is NOT an exceptional case, and the complaint will not be upheld. But there's nothing unlibertarian about trying, even if the policy clause that the complaint is based on would probably not be a policy clause of a free market version of ICANN.
Government Explained 2: The Special Piece of Paper
Law without Government
Graham Wright:All talk of “owning”, “homesteading”, “trading” or “stealing” a domain name is misguided, because it presupposes that a name is something that can be owned, and all anti-IP libertarians know that this is not the case. A claim to own a name, a pattern, or any other idea, is just a mischievous way for creators of names/patterns/ideas to claim ownership of physical objects containing or using that name/pattern/idea.
Then why exactly does Ron Paul have a claim to it? You're demolishing his entire argument. If you actually read his complaint, it explicity argues that Ron Paul has a trademark on "Ron Paul US", and that is why he has a right to the domain.
A domain name can’t be owned (or homesteaded or traded or stolen) because it isn’t a physical object.
So it is your contention that something must be a "physical object" to be able to be owned? Being a "physical object" is a prerequisite for something to be property?
it has little to do with IP.
It seems one of (if not the) foremost libertarian anti-IP advocate (one who likely played a significant role in convincing you yourself of the illegitimacy of IP) disagrees with you (and makes a pretty strong case against your assertion).
Again, essentially the foundation and basis of Ron Paul's entire complaint is based in trademark law. Those are the grounds on which this dispute is being brought up. I honestly don't see how you can ignore this, or allege it isn't true.
The dispute here is that we have two parties trying to influence the policy-interpretation of a private (albeit government-privileged) institution. There is nothing unlibertarian about petitioning a private organisation to make a policy-interpretation decision in your favor.
A) I think it's been pretty well established ICANN is basically private-in-name-only.
As Kinsella said:
"[T]he United States has the strongest interest in the world in foisting its IP system on the rest of the world because of Hollywood and the music industry, so it has pushed and twisted the arms of the rest of the world with a network of treaties -- intellectual property treaties -- administered in part by the United Nations' WIPO, which you just mentioned, the World Intellectual Property Organization. So this is basically an arm of the U.S. government and hollywood (the MPAA). And then the U.S. turned the internet over to a quasi-private corporation (sounds a little bit like the Fed, right?) and then required them to adopt these UDRP rules, which you're talking about, which worked with WIPO and adopted the trademark and intellectual property rules that the big content-providers wanted."
As I said, it is created through government, supported by government, largely (essentially) run by government, and basically backed by government...which holds the position it does only because of government.
And what is that governing body Paul is petitioning, again? The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO): "the United Nations agency dedicated to the use of intellectual property (patents, copyright, trademarks, designs, etc.) as a means of stimulating innovation and creativity."
So Ron Paul's complaint is essentially based in a trademark claim, and has been issued with the "World Intellectual Property Organiztion"...But no, this all "has little to do with IP."
B) Again, if you're going to argue there's nothing wrong with petitioning to make a policy-interpretation decision in your favor, then you have to be ready to Mr. Moneybags-Politicalconnections and his takeover of Grandma Jones' cottage to build his stadium.
The only ways you can disagree with that assessment are if you: (a) want to argue that ICANN is not essentially an arm of government (despite being essentially created by government and having something on the order of 100 governments on their sort of "advisory board", and essentially deriving all its authority and position in the market from government force, etc.)...OR (b) want to claim Grandma Jones' doesn't have rights to that property.
Yes, I'm aware you made the claim that the domain/IP address is not "property" (essentialy because it's not a physical object?), but again, that begs the question...what is it Paul is claiming then? What exactly is he petitioning for? And why is there a dispute at all?...
Basically he's asking for the unique (read: scarce) spot on the list of the single master root server of the WWW (which for intents and purposes could be deemed "the Internet".) And the ultimate reason that spot is so valuable, is because it's scarce, and allegedly the only reason it's scarce is because of government coercion.
The concept of property rights largely rests in the reality of scarcity. And as intangible as domains/IP addresses are, they are scarce in the same sense that they are unique. It has already been addressed that they are largely scarce only because of our current system utilizing a single master root server, (which means they aren't necessarily universally scarce, but scarce in a de facto sense)...but even pro-RP-petition advocate gotlucky already basically admitted they are scarce in that sense, because of the practical reality of anyone actually using another list.
(Then again, he also made the claim that ICANN "owns" the domains, so you may argue he doesn't know what he's talking about, since it is your contention that no one could possibly own a domain.)
But the fact remains, and you can't deny, that domains/IP addresses are essentially unique. To claim otherwise would be to insist that there is no real dispute here at all.
And as I said, if you want to claim that such scarcity would not exist in a free market, then (1) you hurt your argument that ICANN is private and that this is essentially a free market arbitration situation...because you would be admitting that the scarcity is only due to government coercion...not unlike things covered under intellectual property law. And (2), by extention, to support Ron Paul in this case, you would have to support the concept of eminent domain, as it is essentially the same argument of "no one has a better claim to it that anyone else, so it's who ever can convince the government to give it to him."
By the same token, if you want to claim that such a scarcity of domains would exist in a free market, then you come to a legitimate dispute situation...which would have to be resolved, but which would have no quorum for reputation rights, or any sort of IP rights (no trademark, no copyright, no right of publicity, etc.)...meaning the grounds on which Ron Paul is making his claim would have no standing. They are illegitimate.
And as Kinsella said, "in a free society, there would be no reputation rights, no IP law, no trademark, no copyright, no right of publicity, so I doubt the private companies running the internet infrastructure woudl ever have a quasi-IP-based domain name dispute policy in the first place."
So whereas I gave two possible positions before, I'll go ahead and add a third, since you re-introduced (and seemingly largely based your position) on the idea that ICANN is private, therefore this whole thing is legitimate....
If you support Ron Paul in this situation, you either:
a) Think the concept of eniment domain is legitimate because you are of the position that "nobody has a better claim than anybody else, so it's basically whoever can convince the government to give it to him"
b) you are of the position that Internet domains/IP addresses are at least de facto unique, and therefore scarce, but ICANN is a private organization and the de facto scarcity that exists is not solely the result of government fiat (i.e. it would still exist in a completely free society), so any arbitration, based on any premise (including trademark rights) is legitimate.
c) you are of the position that Internet domains/IP addresses are not unique at all (not even in a de facto or particular sense), in which case, I'm not even sure how you would explain this dispute exists in the first place. (Unless of course you are of the position that "intellectual property rights" are legitimate, which in that case, your support of Ron Paul and his claim based on common law trademark would make perfect sense.)
I'm actually quite surprised the notion that ICANN is in any real and signification sense a private organization is still being entertained, let alone used as the basis for claiming Paul is doing nothing unlibertarian.
Here's a relevant piece of the previous interview:
Kokesh: So you could make the argument that this is a "private independent organization", but there's no way that you could make the argument that this authority and the parameters of it are not derived from government coercion.
Kinsella: It's completely corrupted by the government's influence, and basically this is another alternate mechanism that the governments have set up which allows you to enforce trademark rights. So it looks quasi-private, but in my view it's really just the governments allowing trademark holders to enforce their trademark rights.
I honestly don't see how one could feel comfortable resting this whole case on the notion that "ICANN is private, so this is all totally libertarian."
Graham Wright:According to it's own policy, in exceptional cases ICANN [JJ: the essentially government organization] can decide to terminate one individual’s registration of a domain name and allow another individual to register it.
...cases of "IP infringement".
Once again, Clayton, gotlucky, Graham, somebody...please tell me what it is I and/or Kinsella got wrong about the Internet, and/or the above breakdown of what the issue boils down to?
It's already been done. Many times. Anybody who reads this thread can easily see it but you.
Then help me out. Instead of giving an explanation of DNS, point out specifically what I and Kinsella got wrong. Clayton brought up Kinsella using the phrase "contract with the Internet" and used that to introduce the notiont that Kinsella misunderstands the nature of the Internet. I put that quote cut in context, and highlighted Kinsella describing what he meant by that and what the Internet actually is.
Is he wrong? Why?
I used your own quote, gotlucky...I have only spoken of the issue in terms of a single "master root server", which is why the domains are de facto scarce. What is incorrect about this? Are you now suggesting your own source is bunk?
You also explicitly stated "ICANN owns [the domains]." Graham (in his agreement with Clayton) explicitly claims "A domain name can’t be owned". Which is it?
You act as though there's something I'm not getting that you are both in agreement on...but evidently that's not the case.
Please explain it to me.
You would do better to just reread the thread, especially this post.
Already did. Hence "Instead of giving an explanation of DNS, point out specifically what I and Kinsella got wrong."
Your phone analogy (while certainly better than your parade analogy) does nothing to refute anything I've said. In fact it agrees with my and Templeton's assertion of essentially a single master root server. Again, this is your own guy. You quoted it. And It doesn't refute anything Kinsella said either. If you disagree, then demonstrate what I and/or Kinsella have wrong.
Also, your phone analogy does nothing to support your claim that "ICANN owns [the domains]." In fact, that analogy you use, refutes your own claim. You initially claim ICANN owns the domains, then claim the domain is like a phone number, and that neither me nor Verizon owns the phone number.
Graham also directly refutes your claim by explicitly stating "A domain name can’t be owned".
You in fact seem to be the most confused in all of this. You provide analogies that are undeniably flawed (and I'm not the only one who has said so), refute your own statements, and then when posed simple specific questions or requests to demonstrate anything specific that I or Kinsella got wrong, you dance around. I think it's obvious you have no actual response, otherwise you would have gladly torn my posts to shreds by now.
So I guess Clayton is the only one who might be able to save you, but I wouldn't count on it, as, again, if I or Kinsella were so off base about how the Internet works, anyone could have easily demonstrated it by now.
Clayton, can you help? I honestly want to know what I and Kinsella are wrong about here. What is it that we don't understand about the Internet?
And Graham, how exactly is this not about intellectual property? And also, do you still defend the claim that ICANN can really be considered a private organization?
OK, I'll bite. Let's slice up Kinsella's interview quote.
"I think that owning a domain is not the same as owning a physical object like a house, but lets think about what contracts are...contracts — as Rothbard himself showed in his chapter on contracts in The Ethics of Liberty — a contract is just the way the owner of a scarce resource exercises his rights, either to transfer ownership, or to have a contract with someone to agree on how they can use it."
This is correct as far as it goes. My preferred terminology is that property is a right of exclusive use of a physical resource. I can't have property in ideas because an idea is not a physical resource. And I can't have a right in the view of the stars because the view is non-excludable, so there can be no exclusive-use rights. We don't have to use the word "scarce" to define property and see that IP is an illegitimate concept... after all, what exactly is scarce is itself disputable. The question of illegitimate ownership then goes back to tracing the chain of transfers to one that was involuntary or involved preempting a homesteader's rightful claim. If ownership cannot be shown to be illegitimate, then it is presumed to be legitimate.
"So when you have a "contract with the Internet", the Internet is a network of physical connections that are owned by different infrastructure and "backbone" providers and people like this; when you enter into a contract with these people, that ends up resulting in your contractual right — which is distributed across a group of people — to control a certain ISP, [sic] that is, a certain numerical identifier or address, and to give it a certain name."
Right, but why should there be these rather than those numerical identifiers? We're right back to the government's radio-spectrum nonsense. The TCP/IP protocol was developed under ARPANet and it is really this protocol (and controlling the definable addresses within this protocol, of which there are exactly 232 (roughly 4 billion)) that is responsible for the "uniqueness" of Internet addresses. But the fact is that everybody doesn't use the same address space anyway. Private networks are arbitrarily large and use their own address spaces. There was no reason the Internet had to adopt some global number assignment scheme.
"And those are scarce, in the same sense that they are unique, right? I mean every domain is unique, that's why they can reach you by typing 'adamvstheman.com' instead of they reach 5 different potential sites...they only reach one."
And this remark highlights exactly what I'm talking about. By proportion, how many web destinations do you reach by typing a domain name in the address bar? Very, very few, if any. What do you actually do when you want to find something? You use a search engine! So, all that was ever really needed to connect to the Internet was access to a search engine, which could be provided by the private network you connected your computer to.
"The problem is that in a totally free society, when you have a private Internet, there would be no trademark law [...] so there's no way that these Internet service companies would force you to abide by dispute resolution rules which would transfer your domain to someone based upon similar names, or something like that."
And there's no way they would have ever existed-as-such in the first place, at least, not in the enforceable sense they exist today. If you type in "Adam vs. the man" in your search engine, it's going to bring you to THE "Adam vs. the man" website - or return that result as the top result in its search - precisely because that is the website which anyone means when searching this term. The same goes for "Ron Paul"... the top search result would always be Ron Paul's official web page because that is what someone is almost certainly searching for if they type in "Ron Paul". Google in this way is basically corrective of the whole ICANN/IANA debacle in how it operates. Rather than forcing people through this absurd wannabe-phone-directory called the DNS system, it just figures out what web pages you most likely want and returns them in probability order with the most likely at the top.
I don't think the owners of ronpaul.com are squatters, per se, but the DNS system has permitted them to basically subvert the way the system would function without government/ICANN interference. In our Utopian world, there would be no DNS, per se, there would just be search engines (which are basically super-smart-DNS's when you think about it). When you type in "Ron Paul", you would always get as your top result THE Ron Paul webpage, because that's almost certainly what you really want if you just typed "Ron Paul" as a search term. But with the DNS system, "ronpaul.com" can map to something else... and they can use their first-to-the-domain advantage to hold onto it and demand large sums in order to trade it.
And note that the vast majority of search accesses are performed through a search engine, not through the address bar, anyway. That's why I'm sick of this debate... I'm not sure why Ron Paul is seeking the website now, but it's not because people won't be able to find his official website without it. But this is just as true for the owners of ronpaul.com. So what's the big deal on either side of the dispute? The dispute is over control of an entry in an archaic, dinosaur system that has already outlived its usefulness and - due to the concerted effort of public and private interests - will doubtless continue to terrorize us for many decades to come. Whoever wins, wins. What more can really be said? I just don't see how there's a clear-cut right and wrong on either side here. I don't think Ron Paul's doing anything wrong in trying to take over the domain... after all, he is THE Ron Paul. Nevertheless, I don't think the current owners are bad guys for wanting to sell it to him. After all, it's a common practice. But I think their $250K price is total bullshit and if I were Ron Paul looking to buy the domain, I would definitely file the complaint in order to establish leverage in the negotiations. You cannot negotiate from a position of weakness.
OK, I accept that ICANN is private-in-name-only like the Federal Reserve, a monopolist and an arm of the government itself. I retract calling it private. But I don’t think my argument is dependent on that.
I feel there is a useful distinction to be made here between arbitration/law and policy. Policy can be thought of in a broad sense as the decisions made by an institution about how to run its organisation. All institutions, private and public, have policies that the activities of those institutions are based on. A school, for example, will have a policy on what to teach, for example should creationism be taught. A drug regulator/certifier will have a policy on what constitutes a safe drug and gets certified. An emergency hospital will have a policy on what order to treat people in.
It’s clear that, as libertarians, we are unable to provide any opinions on these kinds of policies. All we can say is that the institutions making these policy decisions – schools, drug-certifiers, hospitals – should operate within a free market and do whatever is most profitable. If I am to have an opinion on whether creationism should be taught in schools, it is not a 'libertarian opinion' because libertarianism has nothing to say about it. I would be basing my opinion either on my personal preference for whether I would want my children to be taught creationism, or some kind of speculation about ‘what free market schools would probably do’. There is no such thing as a ‘libertarian answer’ to the question of whether schools should teach creationism. As libertarians, we say that the decision should not be made by the government at all, and then let free market forces determine policy.
But there is a subset of policy that libertarians qua libertarians take very clear positions on. This is what the policy of courts/arbitrators should be – what the law should be. We are not indifferent to which ways courts decide cases of disputes – we are anti-drug-prohibition because it violates the homesteading principle, we are anti-price-controls because it is a violation of the voluntary exchange principle, etc. This is what defines us as libertarians.
So the distinction is: 1. Legal decisions – where there is a property conflict, brought before an arbitrator, where the arbitrator has to make a decision about who has a stronger claim to the disputed property. Here the libertarian has an opinion that is derived from the principles that make him a libertarian. An example would be a dispute over drugs brought before an arbitrator, where the policy is about what qualifies the two claimants to the property. The libertarian takes the view that the policy, in deciding this case, should be based on homesteading/voluntary exchange, rather than on some other criterion (such as siding with the claimant who has the badge and gun and calls himself an agent of the state). 2. Policy decisions – in the wider sense, decisions made by any and all organisations about what principles to use in delivering their service. These are internal decisions, which the organisation has made, based on the information and incentives confronting it. Libertarianism says nothing about policies that are not legal decisions, or 'court policies'. All the libertarian can say is that competition is the best mechanism for having bad policies replaced by good policies, and the free market will decide what policies are best.
I contend that the question “where should the domain name RonPaul.com point?” is a policy question and not a legal question. There is no right/wrong libertarian answer to the question.
Then why exactly does Ron Paul have a claim to it? You're demolishing his entire argument. If you actually read his complaint, it explicitly argues that Ron Paul has a trademark on "Ron Paul US", and that is why he has a right to the domain.
He doesn’t. I’m not saying Ron Paul has a claim to it any more or less than the other party. No one has a legitimate claim to it, because a domain name is not a piece of property (as an anti-IP person, this should be clear) - it is a name, a pattern, an idea.
I read his complaint, and he is arguing against quasi-IP, or IP-infused, policies, so of course his complaint is going to be based on the premise that a domain name can be owned, and that further his pro-IP views have led him to the conclusion that having a famous name resembling the domain name is a legitimate argument for owning it and in accordance with ICANN’s stated policies. It’s not the second part that I am questioning, but the premise that a domain name can be owned.
I’m not supporting Ron Paul in his claim. I’m defending him from the accusation that he is “using government to steal from his supporters”. I consider that a mischaracterisation.
Yes. Is that not the standard anti-IP position?
That seems to be the institution that decides these matters, so who else would he petition?
And as intangible as domains/IP addresses are, they are scarce in the same sense that they are unique.
So for this conversation you’re defining scarce to mean simply ‘unique’? That seems odd. Is the number 123 unique? Is it scarce? Can I own it then? Scarce usually refers to a particular physical object which can be put to multiple incompatible uses, and therefore scarce objects are rivalrous objects, over which conflicts about ultimate decision-making jurisdiction can occur. Do you consider domain names to be rivalrous objects? Do you consider ideas/patterns/recipes to be rivalrous objects?
And as I said, if you want to claim that such scarcity would not exist in a free market, then (1) you hurt your argument that ICANN is private and that this is essentially a free market arbitration situation...because you would be admitting that the scarcity is only due to government coercion...not unlike things covered under intellectual property law. And (2), by extention, to support Ron Paul in this case, you would have to support the concept of eminent domain, as it is essentially the same argument of "no one has a better claim to it that anyone else, so it's who ever can convince the government to give it to him." By the same token, if you want to claim that such a scarcity of domains would exist in a free market, then you come to a legitimate dispute situation...which would have to be resolved, but which would have no quorum for reputation rights, or any sort of IP rights (no trademark, no copyright, no right of publicity, etc.)...meaning the grounds on which Ron Paul is making his claim would have no standing. They are illegitimate.
I really don’t understand what you mean by saying de facto scarcity, or ‘if something is scarce’, or saying that something can be scarce in a free market and not in a non-free market. An object can either be put to multiple incompatible uses, or it can’t. The conditions don’t change that.
What I am saying isn’t anything like eminent domain, because that is a legal issue, a court-policy issue, an actual property conflict. I can have a libertarian opinion on that court policy, but as a libertarian I am indifferent to whether an organisation maintaining an ‘internet phonebook’ decides to transfer domain name registration based on someone’s fame. Is that the best thing for its customers? I don’t know, let the market decide, end the monopoly, that’s my libertarian opinion.
Ok, you sold me in this case. But what if you and the other survivor are just regular guys fighting over the life raft? If Joe Blow gets to the raft first, can you take it from him? That seems unjustifiable to me.
Wenzel’s and (especially) Rockwell's defenses are weak
Maybe some people need a little help with where to look for information. Here are some starting links:
Alternative DNS Root
Open Root Network Server
AlterNIC
Root Name Server
I agree with pretty much everything you said there in your opening distinction, Graham, and I actually appreciate the articulate way you laid it out. But my question then becomes: if you openly accept that ICANN is essentially an arm of government (an institution based in (and existent only as) opposition to libertarian principles), why/how is it that you can say we as libertarians have no quorum with its policy? If it's an arm of government, are its "policy decisions" not by defintion "legal ones"?
Graham Wright:I contend that the question “where should the domain name RonPaul.com point?” is a policy question and not a legal question.
Then why is it being ultimately decided by a legal institution, and enforced (or at least backed by) law, and ultimately the force of government?
I read his complaint, and he is arguing against quasi-IP, or IP-infused, policies
This may be just a weird wording, but I think it's pretty clear, (and you understand) that Ron Paul is certainly not arguing against IP policies of any kind. Quite the opposite. It seems you admit he is literally asserting IP rights and attempting to use those IP-infused policies to his advantage.
Indeed that is largely what this whole dispute among us sideliners is all about.
But there's only two aspects to that that you could object to. (1) That he's not really using government. We've seen this one tried multiple times throughout this debate on the interwebs. Even by Lew Rockwell himself. But most of us here, (and seemingly you as well) do not buy that argument and are not naive enough to believe that ICANN/WIPO is not essentially government.
So the only thing left for you to object to is (2) Paul is stealing from his supporters. It sounds as though you feel this is not the case because "domains can't be owned", so therefore there is nothing to "steal." But if that's the case, what is the dispute even about? It was my understanding that the domain holders/registrants/controllers, whatever we are calling them other than "owners", have...well...control/access(?) to something that Ron Paul does not have control/access to. And he is attempting to get that control/access removed from their power(?) and placed into his...thus allowing him to do what he can't do now, and preventing them from doing what they can do now.
You can argue about "property" all you want, but that certainly sounds like something scarce and rivalrous, that is being transferred from one person to another, to me.
Not to my knowledge. It sounds quite restrictive to me. The idea that something must be a "physical object" to be owned (i.e. for one to have property rights in it) bothers me. Some argue bitcoins fit the bill for non-physical property. I don't see a reason airspace can't be owned. In fact, you'd have to have a pretty weird/stretched definition of "object" even to make the case that land could be owned under your definition. Perhaps you are of the opinion one cannot own land, I don't know.
To my understanding ownable property is largely dependent on that which is rivalrous and scarce. Being a "physical object" is not a pre-requisite to meet those qualities.
And of course this is all not to mention I would consider Kinsella one of foremost scholars on this subject area, and he obviously disagrees with your assessment, at least in the case of domains.
[The World Intellectual Property Organization] seems to be the institution that decides these matters,
Even more evidence that ICANN is little more than simply "another alternate mechanism that the governments have set up which allows you to enforce trademark rights."
so who else would he petition?
Why should he petition at all? Why should he even have to petition? What is he even petitioning for? You already said no one can own a domain...so what exactly is it he is trying to do? And what exactly are the respondants so worried about? If no one can own a domain, and/or domains aren't scarce rivalrous goods, why does either party even care?
So for this conversation you’re defining scarce to mean simply ‘unique’? That seems odd.
A) Those weren't even my words, I quoted Kinsella saying that in an earlier post.
B) Unique as in, it is a "unique identifier", as in, only one person can use it in the network at a time, thus making it useful as an identifier. (Obviously if more than one person could use the same number at a time, it wouldn't be very unique would it? It also wouldn't make a very good identifier, would it?)
Scarce usually refers to a particular physical object which can be put to multiple incompatible uses,
Can you and I occupy the same space at the same time? Does that not make it scarce? Is space a "physical object"?
rivalrous objects, over which conflicts about ultimate decision-making jurisdiction can occur. Do you consider domain names to be rivalrous objects?
A) I've stated so multiple times in this thread (on this very page, in fact), with the appropriate caveats, recognizing that the rivalrous/scarce nature is essentially due to the reality of a single master root server...making them in a way de facto scarce, not necessarily scarce in the sense that one's body is scarce.
B) If they aren't, why in the heck is there a "conflict" in which "ultimate decision-making jurisdiction" is occurring right now?? What is all this even about if there's no conflict?
Do you consider ideas/patterns/recipes to be rivalrous objects?
No.
I really don’t understand what you mean by saying de facto scarcity,
Scarcity "in fact"...such as "At its peak, the ice cream shop received 90% of the dessert dollars spent in the neighborhood, giving it a 'de facto' monopoly on the local dessert market." It's not an actual, definitional, full monopoly, but basically for all practical intents and purposes, a monopoly exists...and it's not a monopoly in a means-oriented sense (e.g. de jure monopoly), but in an end-oriented sense.
I say IP addresses/domain names are "de facto" scarce because while it is true people do not have to use the ICANN root server (or even the same "internet" of connections...theoretically people could create a completely alternate set of connections and create a totally different network that has nothing to do with anything any of us consider any part of "the Internet")...but the fact is basically most everyone does use the same master root server, which is why you can feel comfortable handing out a business card, or buying a billboard with "GrahamWright.com" on it, and be confident that virtually everyone will end up at the same place. Because of this, "GrahamWright.com" (or RonPaul.com) is "de facto" scarce...because really, in practice and practical applications, only one person/group (read: site) can use each domain at a time. Indeed, that's what this entire dispute is about. Again, if this weren't the case, how is there even a conflict? What is Ron Paul "complaining" about?
Also I might have actually said "de jure" scarcity, as it could be argued that this scarcity only exists through the force of government legal mandate (much like the artificial "scarcity" created by IP law. So one might actually say it is actually a means-oriented monopoly.)
‘if something is scarce’,
I don't recall where I said anything like that, but I would take it to mean something along the lines of "supposing scarcity exists in a certain thing..." As in, scarcity exists in gold, and your body, and land on Earth. Those things are scarce. "If something is scarce", it meets the requirements for something to be called "scarce."
or saying that something can be scarce in a free market and not in a non-free market.
I don't recall saying that either. What I know I did say is that it is arguable whether this "de facto scarcity" of domains/IP addresses would exist in a free market. That is, it obviously exists in this unfree market (which, as I said, with the market being unfree, it could be said to be a "de jure scarcity")...but it is not obvious that something similar would not exist even in a free market...namely, the use of a single master root server that virtually everyone utilized for their Internet requests.
Again, as I've said multiple times, it may or may not be the case that a single master root server setup would be the norm in a free society. Clayton seems to think it wouldn't. Others might argue it would be found by the market to be the most practical. I for one don't know. I don't presume to know how the market would work out such things free from the interference of government. For all we know technology would advance so fast that it wouldn't even be an issue needed to be considered. I don't know how anyone could presume to know such things. I find it rather audacious to make such assertions. But apparently some people feel comfortable in doing so and making claims as to how everyone would technologically communicate in a completely free society. *shrug*
All I do know is that a master root server setup would or wouldn't exist in a free market. Those are the only choices I know to be possible. It would either exist, or it wouldn't. (If you can think of a third possibility, I would certainly be willing to hear it.)
And what I'm saying is that if such a setup wouldn't exist in a free market (i.e., you wouldn't have the kind of scarcity of domains we see now), then you essentially come to an eminent domain argument...because we are then talking about an illegitimate "ownership" situation (I realize you don't believe one can own a domain, but I'm using that word for lack of a better one. In this single root server setup, only one site can use a domain at a time, therefore the domain can be said to be rivalrous and scarce. And when one party is said to "own" the domain, it is meant to say that party has control over where the Internet surfer is routed (and ultimately where they land/what site they are taken to) when they enter that domain.)
So, if we are saying that a single master root server would not exist in a free market, then, in our current unfree market we are dealing with essentially an artificial scarcity, and an illegitimate ownership. Again, this is not unlike the artificial scarcity created by IP law, in which ideas are not actually scarce, but in a world in which ideas and patterns are protected by law, and said to be "owned" (that is, someone else has the legal right to forcibly prevent you from implementing a design in your own property), it can be said that a "de jure" scarcity exists, as the design can be held by anyone and everyone, but by law only one person may implement it.
Of course, this kind of "ownership" is illegitimate. For this reason, it could be argued that "nobody has a better claim than anybody else" (as you've seen done in this very thread.) And of course, with that argument comes the necessary "so who gets it is determined by whomever can convince the government to give it to him"...which is, as I said, essentially an eminent domain argument.
So if your position is that the single master root server would not exist in a free market, then the only way you can defend Ron Paul asserting he has better claim to the domain than anyone else is by resting on the contention that "hey, dos are da rulez. Ron Paul is just playing by them. Those RP.com guys agreed to the terms when they acquired the domain. Whoever the government decides, is who gets to own it."
ON THE OTHER HAND, if such a scarcity of domains would exist in a free market, (that is, we would have a similar situation of a single master root server that virtually everyone used) then you come to a legitimate dispute situation...as the scarcity is actually natural (i.e. it exists free from government coercion...it is not artificially created by government force). So therefore, it is a legitimate dispute, and it is possible for there to be a legitimate owner. In this case (i.e. a free market), there would be no reputation rights, no IP law, no trademark, no copyright, no right of publicity, so it is highly doubtful the private companies running the internet infrastructure would base their domain dispute policy on IP law in the first place.
And of course, IP law (more specifically, trademark) is precisely the ground on which Ron Paul is basing his higher claim on the domain. So he wouldn't win that argument in a free market. Indeed, it is only in this world of "intellectual property rights" does Ron Paul have such a claim.
So either way, there is an unlibertarian aspect to the case, regardless of how things would look in a free market. And I suppose we could actually just break this down to a simple question of whether the monopoly we are seeing in the Internet currently is a "de jure" monopoly or a "de facto" one: If, in a free market, the (essentially) monopoly of a single master root server would not exist, then that means the only reason we have one now is because of government intervention of some kind...making it a "de jure" monopoly, and therefore in a market free from government, this dispute wouldn't exist (meaning there really is no legitimate owner here in this case, and the owner ends up being whoever the government says (i.e. eminent domain)).
And if, in a free market, the monopoly of a single master root server would still exist, due simply to the preferences of the market (e.g. everyone voluntarily decides to patronize one ice cream shop), then we would say we're dealing with a de facto monopoly, and the dispute would exist, but would have to be resolved on grounds that don't involve "intellectual property rights."
What I am saying isn’t anything like eminent domain, because that is a legal issue, a court-policy issue, an actual property conflict. I can have a libertarian opinion on that court policy, but as a libertarian I am indifferent to whether an organisation maintaining an ‘internet phonebook’ decides to transfer domain name registration based on someone’s fame.
And once again, if it's admitedly an arm of government, are its "policy decisions" not by defintion "legal ones"?
Is that the best thing for its customers? I don’t know, let the market decide, end the monopoly, that’s my libertarian opinion.
Bingo. And I have given you the two possible scenarios of this situation in the free market. Either there would still be a monopoly (i.e. a legitimate, market-oriented one), or there wouldn't be.
Clayton seems to think it wouldn't.
As GL's links show, it is already the case that there isn't truly a single root server, despite the attempts of USG/ICANN to bring this about. Namecoin was in the Alternative DNS Wiki and looks particularly fascinating. You can configure your browser right now to use an alternative DNS not rooted in ICANN's root server. The only differences are you will be able to continue accessing websites that the DHS has "seized" ... and your web browsing may be slowed somewhat as alternative DNS's are, naturally, not as well resourced as mainstream DNS servers.
Clayton:As GL's links show, it is already the case that there isn't truly a single root server,
As I said, essentially there is. Exactly what percentage of Internet users are using alternative DNS that doesn't tap ICANN's root server? gotlucky is the one who posted the guy basically admitting this.
Or is this an "old source" from the second page of the thread when gotlucky didn't know what he was talking about, before the third page when he became an Internet expert? Is Brad Templeton full of shit now? We don't listen to him? Ignore gotlucky's old links and use the new ones? Do they even conflict with each other? (Of course we know gotlucky's own comments do, but I'm asking about the content of the links themselves.)
"I'm already sick of this thread as I announced above"
... Seriously. this is the first time I've visited this thread in days (because I know nothing about the subject and I don't really care, nor do I like a thread that has been all but dedicated to JJ attempting to show off his plumage) and all I have to say is: "What an awful and annoying thread"...
Also, props to gotlucky for this statement:
"what's incredibly obvious is that my position has been refined as I did more research... Some of my earlier statements are inaccurate, but that doesn't matter. What matters are the refined statements from my increased understanding."