[CWG-Stewardship] Fwd: [Internal-cg] Status of IPR topic in the CWG

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

This is also just me speaking for myself.

On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 02:43:51PM -0400, Greg Shatan wrote:

> understanding.  The CRISP proposal does not form any kind of "status quo."
>  Indeed, the "status quo" is that ICANN owns the trademarks and domain
> names.

That seems like a bizarre argument to me, since the _status quo_ is
also that the NTIA is involved and all that entails.  What we are
supposed to be doing, however, is ensuring that the overall system
changes as little as practical on the grounds that that is better for
overall stability.  It is plain that the changes that will be most
important have to be contractual and legal, since what is actually
disappearing is a legal party rather than one that is involved in the
direct operation of anything.  Another operational community has
argued cogently about the operational risks associated with leaving
the trademarks and domain names where they are, and therefore proposed
an alternative.  This maintains the operational _status quo_ at the
cost of the legal/contractual _status quo_, which seems to me to be
exactly the sort of thing we're supposed to be doing.

> Although the RFP asked us to maintain the status quo unless there
> specific, well-explained reasons not to, I think that the CWG should
> approach this question with an open mind, without giving weight to either
> the status quo or the CRISP proposal.

I'm having a hard time parsing that sentence to mean something other
than, "I know what our task was, but I think we should do something
else instead."  Presumably that's not what you meant.  Could you say
what you did mean?

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com