Food for thought, was Re: [AfrICANN-discuss] Internet regulation at national level?

[Nigel Roberts]

'Alienation' means to give to someone else.

It's a generic term that includes gift, sale, any form of transfer of 
ownership.


On 11/01/2012 01:39 PM, Adiel Akplogan wrote:
> Eberhard,
>
> On 2012-11-01, at 12:25 PM, Dr Eberhard Lisse<el at lisse.NA>  wrote:
>
>> I am not sure you are right here.
>>
>> Generally speaking a database is Intellectual Property (as a
>> compilation) unless there is a /sui generis/ right as for example in
>> the EU. Whether it is "public" or "internal" doesn't really matter.
>>
>> And it is not the names or numbers themselves which constitute the
>> IP but the *compilation* (thereof), presumably because of the effort
>> involved assembling it ("Sweat of the Brow" doctrine, which is used in
>> the Commonwealth but not the US, for example).
>
> It is the same case in MU, database *can* be considered an IP. However
> as RIR we do not claim ownership or any IP on our public WHOIS database.
> This mainly because RIR WOIS database are considered public technical
> tools and users are the one who build its content themselves. This is
> why generally RIR's WHOIS database are excluded from general debate on
> **domain** name WHOIS database.
>
>> It might also matter significantly where the IP (database) is
>> physically located, not just where AfriNIC is registered …
>
> True.
>
>> As any database has a value a non-profit can usually not just
>> alienate it (to the public) as there are fiduciary responsibilities
>> involved.  Usually the disposal of assets is regulated by the
>> articles of incorporation or something similar.  At the very least a
>> formal Board resolution might be required…
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by alienation (my english is not that good at
> this time of the day :-). But most of the information contain in our whois
> are created by the users themselves, protected by themselves and can be
> maintained by themselves (deleted, changed etc…). The only objects we
> create as RIR are and have control on are Allocations (PA) and direct
> assignments (PI). Other assignments made by members to their customers or
> their own infrastructure are created by LIRs and protected by them with
> their own Maintainer Objects same for PoC (Point of Contact).
>
>> Have the Directors considered these three issues (What, Where,
>> Alienation)?  And if so, have you taken legal advice in this regards?
>
> Yes that is handled in our Registration Service Agreement and our IP
> addresses allocations/assignments policies. Maybe there are some aspects
> that I'm not seeing, thanks for further clarify your point if needed.
>
> Thanks.
>
> - a.
>
> PS: for those who may be confused here about "IP" note that
> IP:Intellectual Property != IP:Internet Protocol
>
>
>
>> on 2012-11-01 09:57 Adiel Akplogan said the following:
>> [...]
>>> AFRINIC is legally registered only in Mauritius hence operates
>>> legally under Mauritius Law.  We have hosting agreement with
>>> datacenters in ZA where we host copy of some of our public
>>> services only.
>> [...]
>>> Now as part of our role of RIR we maintain a public WHOIS database
>>> which contains public IP registration data owned by own by people
>>> who created them.  So these public data in the WHOIS belong to
>>> AFRINIC's community.
>> [...]
>>
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>
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