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Edited Legal Collections Data |
Book Title: Generic Top-Level Domains
Editor(s): Mahler, Tobias
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Section: Chapter 7
Section Title: Property rights in generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)
Number of pages: 17
Abstract/Description:
Chapter 7 focusses on property rights in gTLDs. Does somebody own the DNS, or parts of it? It is argued that the ICANN corporation does not own the DNS; rather, it manages a common property regime. By comparison, registry operators of gTLDs arguably hold an individual property right. This conclusion may be controversial, as ownership rights are explicitly excluded by many ICANN documents and contracts. I make this claim because the registry operator of a gTLD enjoys a significant degree of protection of its interests in the gTLD, and this fulfils certain economic criteria for property rights. Thus, perhaps surprisingly, gTLD operators hold property rights in the economic sense, but not necessarily in the legal sense, as the legal notion can differ from between jurisdictions and even contexts. To avoid the conceptual challenges with the phrase ‘property right’, the chapter proposes a new term, ‘gTLD right’.
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ELECD/2019/578.html