IRT meeting London

[Milton L Mueller]

Konstantinos
Very glad you could show up there, and thanks for making our views known.
I am really disappointed to hear that Jeff Neuman, who I always thought was a fair-minded person, interrupted and attempted to pre-empt your statement on the completely bogus grounds that he had heard it before. I've copied him on this message because I want to hear his side of the story.

Perhaps Jeff needs to be reminded that it's the public that supposed to be listening to and considering this proposal, not the usual ICANN insiders, and the fact that he heard it before doesn't mean anything. Indeed, if "we've heard this before" was a valid reason to try to shut someone up, then maybe the whole IRT panel should have been asked to shut up, because we've been hearing the same stuff from them for ten years. It's really bad form but hey, I guess when policy proposals can't stand on the merits you have to try to make their critics look bad.

Milton Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
XS4All Professor, Delft University of Technology
------------------------------
Internet Governance Project:
http://internetgovernance.org<http://internetgovernance.org/>



________________________________
From: Non-Commercial User Constituency [mailto:NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Konstantinos Komaitis
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 10:31 AM
To: NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: [NCUC-DISCUSS] IRT meeting London

Dear all,

Just back from the IRT meeting in London and let me share briefly with you what happened (very dizzy after so many hours on the train).

As in NY, the whole morning was spent at presentations by the IRT panel, WIPO, ICANN and some individuals; that took us to lunch and after that the panel gave the floor for statements/questions.

Presentations: the IRT panel seemed to be toning down a bit and I think that had to do with the reaction they received in NY. They said of course the same things over and over again and how great the report is, but they made it clear that this report does not represent the views of ICANN (implying that we should not target ICANN) and that also we need to remember the short time-frame within which the team operated.
Richard Tindal of Demand Media spoke against most of the report. So did, Paul Keating, who focused on the URS and slammed it down.

Then the statements came. Many of the people who grabbed the microphone were in favour of the report - the Danish law society, Nestle, some Registrars, etc. Nothing surprising there; what was surprising - to me at least - was the reaction that I received during our statement statement. I was abruptly interrupted by Jeff Neuman, who asked whether it was necessary to read the NCUC statement, since it was along the same lines as Kathy's in New York. Of course, I continued reading the statement telling Jeff that the panel might be the same as in NY but the audience is not; more questions came from the ICANN staff as well as from Fabricio Vayra about our statement (mainly about the IP Clearinghouse and GPML). After many interruptions, I finally managed to get through the whole thing.

Rebecca gave a great statement as did some other people (John Levine for instance). Overall, I realized that the IRT team is at a great advantage. Hearing them speaking, I though that if I didn't know any better, I would think that they are doing a great job under difficult circumstances. That is how the public saw it at least. We need to continue with this fight and we need to get as many voices as possible. In London there were not enough and the IRT is gaining ground.

The good news is that I was approached by a reporter who wants to do a piece on it for the forthcoming issue of World Trademark Review (mainly targeting trademark lawyers) and I had a brief exchange of email with a guy from the economist who also showed some interest. I will let you know about these two things.

Thank you.

Best
Konstantinos

Statement:

Good afternoon. My name is Konstantinos Komaitis and I am here both in my capacity as an academic with research experience in domain name regulation and as a member of ICANN's Non-Commercial User Constituency. Above all, however, I am here as a registrant who has serious concerns about this report and how it makes all non-commercial users look bad.

Here are in brief our concerns:
IP Clearinghouse: it falls outside the scope and mission of ICANN. Putting ICANN in charge of this massive database, transmogrifies and gives privileges to ICANN currently enjoyed by national trademark offices. It is of great concern that in the years to come this database could be abused and/or misused against future domain name registrants. The idea is valuable but its presentation is problematic. Over the past ten years, the market has shown that it can provide solutions - and this is one need that we can trust the market to meet.
GPML: it changes the face of traditional trademark law. Currently, there is no international consensus on which marks are worthy of global protection and WIPO has refrained from producing such list. The list seeks to protect marks not according to their associated goodwill, as has always been the case in trademark law, but merely as strings of characters regardless of use or relevance. This is not what trademark law is about.
URS: is a dangerous provision and can set a treacherous precedent. It should be expected that the URS will replace the UDRP with a much faster, cheaper and fundamentally unfair process. Similar to the current UDRP culture, the URS is a process open to abuse and procedural injustice. The conceptual basis and the language of the URS is reminiscent to the conceptual basis and language of the UDRP - so why not amend the existing regime?
We also strongly oppose the thick WHOIS and the post-delegation dispute mechanism, but I am running out of time.
The IRT report states: "The recommendation should protect the existing rights of trademark owners, but neither expand those rights nor create additional legal rights". The IRT report does not conform with this; it fails to see trademarks as limited rights as it fails to incentivize registrants. On the contrary, it expands the rights of trademark owners beyond their intended purpose.
Thank you.







--
Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis,
Lecturer in Law,
GigaNet Membership Chair,
University of Strathclyde,
The Lord Hope Building,
141 St. James Road,
Glasgow, G4 0LT,
UK
tel: +44 (0)141 548 4306
email: k.komaitis at strath.ac.uk
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