Folks,
Let's table this discussion until we can have a more thorough exploration of the issues. Email is a terrible way in which to have such a discussion. Threads get lost, broken, etc. and everyone is looking at this from a very narrow perspective. We owe it to our constituency to take a broader view and to spend the time getting it right.
Jonathan
George
Are these end-user issues that apply to the comment that the CPWG initially proposed to add to the registry submissions about the pricing of domains? We seem to have gotten a bit off track.
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 6:35 AM George Kirikos <
icann@leap.com> wrote:
Hi folks,
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 11:57 AM Greg Shatan <greg@isoc-ny.org> wrote:
> Finally, this concern about protecting small non-profits from paying big bucks for domain names would seem a lot more genuine if it included support for price caps in the resale market (i.e., the secondary market or aftermarket).
You're conflating 2 different issues, Greg. The registry operators
charge *fees* for registry services (i.e. managing a central database,
the zone file, the nameservers that spit back the nameservers for the
various domain names in that registry). The market value of those
services are below $1/yr/domain (e.g. 70 cents per domain per year for
the .IN ccTLD, as per their recent tender won by Neustar).
http://domainincite.com/23976-neustar-completes-in-migration
The secondary market or aftermarket is a marketplace for the asset
value of the domain names themselves, which is an entirely different
market than that for registry services.
To understand this distinction, consider a trademark registry, like
the USPTO, which has a fee structure for the services they provide for
the registration and maintenance of trademarks. Those fees are
entirely unrelated to the value of the trademark itself. A trademark
owned by Google for "GOOGLE" or by Nike for "JUST DO IT" has set fees,
and Google or Nike are free to sell, assign, license, etc. those
trademarks to others at whatever the market will bear. Companies like
Hilco Streambank routinely auction off the IP of companies, including
their trademarks, see:
https://www.hilcostreambank.com/closed-deals
and of course, owners of TMs do these kinds of transactions all the
time. For example, Hooters sold their trademark for $60 million.
https://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2001/04/09/story1.html
The same comparison exists for a land registry and houses. Or a
copyright registry, and the copyrighted works. The story of the
Beatles catalog makes interesting reading:
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/7662519/beatles-catalog-paul-mccartney-brief-history-ownership
and that catalog only has value due to the copyrights (once those
copyrights expire, the works fall into the public domain, and the
works are free for everyone to use).
Sincerely,
George Kirikos
416-588-0269
http://www.leap.com/
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