[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] New Year Challenge

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Tue, Jan 03, 2017 at 04:21:04PM -0500, Stephanie Perrin wrote:
> Very odd that there is not more language in the contracts to that effect.

Why?

There are basically two possibilities.

One is that resellers are agents, and there is explicit
acknowledgement of the additional agent's presence but that's it.

The alternative is that someone attempts to regulate and otherwise
control the way that agency works in this market.  In that case, we
will re-learn empircally the same thing that people have learned
repeatedly already about reselling things on the Internet (whether
that was concert tickets, or digital files, or embargoed products, or
indeed domain names back in the early days of the registrar market):
the Internet is really good at rendering ridiculous commercial and
contractual restrictions on commerce between two willing parties.  It
might turn out that one can regulate in such a way that it's a
_hassle_, so that only the committed participate in the grey market.
But one cannot make the market go away by fiat, and the more one
attempts to regulate that grey market the more likely it is to thrive.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com