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Re: Dave Farber comments on Re: Major Labels v. Backbones

  • From: Sean Donelan
  • Date: Sat Aug 17 15:42:57 2002

On Sat, 17 Aug 2002, Sean M. Doran wrote:
> Hm, why stop with just backbone networks?
>
> Why shouldn't edge networks, corporate networks, and household
> networks chip in to uphold civil judgements against infringers?

The record labels don't want to give you that choice.  If you read the
complaint you'll notice the record companies never attempted to contact
the immediate upstream ISP in China.  Instead of following international
treaties for the service of process, which would take "months," they are
forum shopping for a "less burdensome" (to them, more burdensome to
everyone else) forum.

It is much easier to get on a "blackhole list" than it is to get off of
one.  If you are a non-US ISP, you could find your address space null
routed by major US backbones without notice to you.  Even if you later
get rid of the customer, how does the non-US ISP get off the US court
imposed blacklist?  Will China Telecom, or the Chinese government need to
hire a US lawyer to petition the US court for permission to have address
space assigned by APNIC to China routed?  Will RIPE and APNIC issue
additional address space to a non-US ISP because their previous address
space became unroutable due to US court orders?

Will backbones be expected to only null route addresses within the court's
area of jurisdiction?  Worldcom, AT&T, Sprint and C&W operate world-wide
routing domains.  How far will the US court's order "leak?"  Will Canada
and Europe still be able to reach www.listen4ever.com in China over the
portions of the companies backbones not located in US jurisdiction?
Likewise when German and French courts order backbone providers with
assets in those jurisdictions to block access to illegal websites, how far
will those orders leak?  AOL/CompuServe has experienced this in Germany
already.

Dr. Farber's statements to the contrary, I don't think this is trivial to
implement.  We have experience with AGIS, Napster, RBLs, etc.