[address-policy-wg] Enabling Methods for Reallocation of IPv4 Resources

> "Expired per the 1st of Januari 2007"
> 
> The following one is apparently still valid though:
> http://www.st-ab.nl/wetten/1064_Wet_op_het_financieel_toezicht_Wft.htm

Yes, the little details are important.

> There is no mention at all about virtual property or the 
> 'owning' of numbers though. A zipcode is no property, nor is 
> a bankaccount number etc.

Nobody has seriously suggested that IP addresses are property or
that transfer policies would change the ownership of IP addresses.
Instead, people are talking about buying and selling contracts
which give the right to use a specific IP address allocation.
This is a lot like a commodities contract, for instance you
can buy a contract for the delivery of a ton of copper, and
then sell that contract to somebody else. You never actually
own a ton of copper because you are buying and selling contracts.
There are many varieties of contract like this, usually called
derivatives (except for insurance and re-insurance). All of
these contracts are covered by the MiFID rules and are regulated
by national regulators such as the FAS in the UK.

So why am I saying all this? To point out that somewhere,
there is a limit which we cannot cross, or else we will discover
that RIPE activities will become regulated by some governmental
body like the Euronext Regulator Committee. Before we go too
far down this direction, we should find out what those limits
are. Or disallow privately negotiated transfers entirely and
require all transfers to be subject to RIPE approval based on
the same technical justifications as all RIPE allocations.

> Anybody 
> though can simply take whatever number they want and given 
> that enough ISPs start talking to it, that will simply work, 
> but they have to convince the largest amount to do that though.

I would rather see people do this than create a regulated market
for IP address contracts. The fact is that most regional ISPs
don't need full Internet connectivity with the entire world in
order to satisfy their customers. If a European ISP started to
use addresses in 126/8, they probably have enough peering 
relationships in place to succeed. A few Japanese cable users
will complain that they can't reach European sites, but in Japan
most users will never notice the difference either.

> Also note that that 'trading' in IP addresses and other 
> resources already happens for a long long time, eg when 
> company A buys company B solely for the addresses and ASN's etc etc.

Generally there are network assets transferred at the same time
and the network justifies the transfer of the addresses.

> Nice example from ebay:
> http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/evidence.lasso?rokso_id=ROK2594

That's not ebay, that is Spamhaus. And the page contains no reference
to ebay at all. Also, it shows a USA address which means that ARIN's
policy applies and they won't accept a transfer without justfication
for the address allocation.

Basically, the participants in RIPE are not lawyers and I believe that
we
need some expert advice from lawyers who are familiar with MiFID and
the regulation of financial markets in Holland, where RIPE is based.

--Michael Dillon