Dear Liz This is a very important discussion and thanks for framing it simply. I am guessing the issue about the Aboriginal community being able to register the name is whether or not they will be competing against another company who trademarked that name and who could possibly sue them. And maybe they don't even register the domain name but create a handcraft company with the river name. In that sense, it is not about limiting the registration of a name but ensuring protection for communities which are left vulnerable if exclusive registration rights and associated IP rights are given to whoever first registers the name. But this is probably out of the scope of WT5 since it deals with governmental objections and not unrecognized minority communities or treaties without a broader international intergovernmental acceptance. Best, Renata On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 9:49 PM, Liz Williams <liz.williams@auda.org.au> wrote:
Hello everyone
I wanted to refer back to our call this morning (Australia time) to provide some more examples about the nature of generic words that are also used for important geographic terms. I used three examples this morning which relate to our major river systems which is not dissimilar to the Amazon River example where the rivers flow through different states. In my example, the Murray, Darling & Murrumbidgee rivers are all significant geographic features. The first two are named after people; the third an Aboriginal word in the Wiradjuri language. The Murrumbidgee River flows through several distinct areas of Aboriginal land and forms part of the Murray River system.
We could extend the analysis by including Mount Kosciuszko National Park which includes our highest mountain (and from which the Murrumbidgee flows.) Again, named after a real person (whose name likely doesn’t fit as a good TLD label!) but, nonetheless, is one of our most significant geographic identifiers.
IF we were to conclude that a broader bucket of geographic identifiers (like rivers and places) were to somehow be constrained/limited/banned what purpose would that serve? For example, if the Aboriginal communities that live along the river and identify with that region, why wouldn’t they be welcome to apply for the name? The same could be said of landowners (like I was), tourist enterprises, naturalists, national parks, might also want to create a new “community” top level domain that they can use. The same could be said of the Murray/Darling examples.
There are many many other examples that this group could come up with which shows the way in which humans name geographic features that are intrinsic parts of their culture. From my personal perspective expanding any limitations on what applicants can apply for is a negative idea. Instead, we need to work towards enabling the expansion of the domain name space to suit end users.
And most importantly, we need simple steps (I think we need some schematic to show how this could work in practical evaluation) to understand how to deal with contention and to resolve that contention efficiently and fairly.
Liz …. Dr Liz Williams | International Affairs .au Domain Administration Ltd M: +61 436 020 595 | +44 7824 877757 E: liz.williams@auda.org.au www.auda.org.au
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