Looks like they've found a new way to squeeze money out of artificial domain name scarcity.

I finally got the “official” word from Vint Cerf of ICANN, “on the record”, who confirmed that my interpretation is correct, that differential/tiered pricing on a domain-by-domain basis would not be forbidden under the .biz/info/org proposed contracts. This means that the registries could charge $100,000/yr for sex.biz, $25,000/yr for movies.org, etc.

As there is no competition for registries, if your domain fees go up neither you nor your registrar can do anything about it. This means that domains will go up until the registry finds the equilibrium point between revenue generated per domain and the reduction in the total number of registered domains.

Vint said it would be “suicide” for a registry to do it, because there’d be the 6-month notice period to raise prices and the ability for registrants to renew for up to 10 years at “old prices”, that supposedly “protects” registrants.

Most businesses are looking at a longer timeframe then 10 years and most individuals can't afford 10 years of registration, so this helps who?

This will cause broad reorganization of DNS.

ICANN Confirms: Tiered Pricing Not Forbidden in New .BIZ, .INFO and .ORG Contracts

With Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto hanging on its back like a “kick me” sign, the company got cut very little slack.

I seriously doubt the company would be cut additional slack if they had never said "don't be evil." However, I do think its interesting to see certain quaters start to refer to Google's "Don't be evil" motto as a burden or a mistake.

Xooglers: Never Say don't be evil

Lamar Smith has a nack for writing bills that I hate, but this rule change is baddly needed and I support it.

Chairman Lamar Smith (TX-21) today introduced the “Orphan Works Act of 2006” (H.R. 5439), which creates new guidelines for use of copyrighted material when the original owner cannot be located.

©opyBites: Copyright Law Blog: Orphan Works Legislation

The Supreme Court overturned a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a specialized court that hears appeals in patent cases, which had ruled earlier this year that injunctions should be granted as a "general rule."

A patent holder, the Supreme Court ruled, must prove four facts: that it has suffered an "irreparable injury"; that there are no other adequate legal remedies; that taking into account the balance of harm to both parties, an injunction is warranted; and that the public interest would not be hurt by an injunction.

This is a good ruling. The public interest in access to the technology should not be hurt by an injunction. The law, optimally, should enable only reasonable license fees to be obtained. A patent is a legal privledge intended to serve the public interest, its not a private property right as argued by this jackass.

Robust economic performance depends on strong protection of property rights from invasion without and the enforcement of voluntary contracts between parties.

I could not disagree more. This isn't even well put (without?!). Keeping important technologies off the market place or making them prohibitively expensive to employ prevents technological evolution that has a far greater impact on overall economic performance then these free contractual relationships. This is where I have a bone to pick with people who are so libertarian that they have no problem with monopolies. Technological development, and not the market, creates the efficiencies that contribute to your standard of living. The market is useful in so far as it creates an environment that incents creative innovation and ensures that those innovations are actually used and can be built upon. The problem with centrally controlled economies is that they inhibit innovation. If free markets are not kept competitive and someone ends up holding all of the cards, they become just like centrally controlled economies in that you have to get permission from the card holder in order to change things, and the card holder has a disincentive to change. The result is technological and, ultimately, economic stagnation.

Justices Set Aside Patent Ruling Against eBay - New York Times

The Consumer Electronics Association created this terrific new ad, which will run in two Capitol Hill publications today.

In response to a bill which among other things would ban MP3 streaming for webcasters playing commercial music.

Some sanity in the IP debate.

The bill would increase penalties for small-scale, noncommercial copyright infringement beyond even their current excessive levels. For example, noncommercial distribution of copyrighted material worth $2500 or more would carry a maximum sentence of ten years in Federal prison. Even attempting to commit that level of infringment would potentially carry a ten-year sentence. That’s the same maximum sentenced faced by bribe-taking Congressman Duke Cunningham, whose corruption probably cost taxpayers millions of dollars. It’s also more than the average Federal sentence for manslaughter (33 months), sexual abuse (73 months), arson (87 months), fraud (14 months), embezzlement (7 months), bribery (10 months), or racketeering/extortion (72 months).

I got $10 that Marsha Blackburn cosponsors this intolerable act.

Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » U.S. Copyright May Get Harsher and Broader

New technology is "encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft," Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities."

Willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

But one of the more controversial sections may be the changes to the DMCA. Under current law, Section 1201 of the law generally prohibits distributing or trafficking in any software or hardware that can be used to bypass copy-protection devices. (That section already has been used against a Princeton computer science professor, Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov and a toner cartridge remanufacturer.)

Smith's measure would expand those civil and criminal restrictions. Instead of merely targeting distribution, the new language says nobody may "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else.

When the Attorney General raises the specter of terrorism in the context of laws which primarily related to p2p file trading networks, its time to stop taking the Attorney General seriously. He is obviously not a serious person.

As for Lamar Smith, he is responsible for 2004's round of rock stupid DNS WHOIS legislation.

Congress readies DMCA ][

I completely agree with Brad about software patents, I think they are useless as a business tool.

Until they are abolished however, I encourage all of our portoflio companies to file for as many as they need for defensive purposes.

A VC: Patently Absurd

Given that there are approximately 50 million .COM domains registered, it is indeed true that the low-hanging fruit domain names are overwhelming taken, and your chances of lucking upon an unnoticed available three-letter acronym (TLA) are close to zero, and your only recourse would be to haggle with domain speculators.

Some interesting data about the state of available domains.

Dennis Forbes - DNS is full. Go home.

"If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted."

How dare you have a different approach to Intellectual Property. Now everything won't be the same and some people might have to think! Thats impossible!

Hillarious anti-open source quote...