Re: [CCG] [Trustees] Proposed Changes to License Agreements

[John Curran <[e-mail]>]

On 9 Mar 2017, at 5:08 PM, Russ Housley <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:

Can we get an explicit response from someone speaking for the Numbers Community that they do not have any concerns?

Russ (& the IPR Community Coordination Group) -

   The number community is supportive of the change in general, but our legal
   review has raised two questions (summarized below - see attached full text
   for context):

       1. Do we mean “no response” or “no objection” from the current contacts?
           It is possible that any response (even simply clarification) would inhibit
           update, and that may not be the desired outcome.  We would appreciate
           confirmation and are fine with either outcome.

       2. Can we also obtain confirmation that the agreement between the licensor
           and the registrar is only valid as long as the License agreement is in force?

Thanks,
/John

John Curran
Chair, Number Resource Organization

===

The proposed text introduces obligations to the “Registrar", while the
registrar is not a party in the agreement and hasn’t been defined ( also
it is a capitalised terms that hasn’t been defined in the agreement).
The obligations of the registrar should be defined in the agreement
between the Licensor and the registrar. Instead the text should say “The
Licensor must ensure that the registrar will provide notice of receipt
etc”).

Also the proposed change introduce some procedure for the approval of
changes to the technical contact, registrar transfers and deletion of
the domain name. The current document requires the approval of both
technical contact (ICANN according to Article 3.2 of the License
agreement) and administrative contact (which we assume is IETF trust).

Both the current and the proposed text give the registrant (which is the
IETF trust) the right to override the need for an approval by the
technical and the administrative contact 10 days after the request.

The current text is not very clear about this process and so the
proposed text intends to introduce some more clarity. In particular the
current version allows for a waiver 10 days after the registrant (IETF
trust) notifies both the technical and administrative contact of the
request for change. It is not specifically written in the current
version but we assume that the intention of this waiver is to allow the
registrant to go ahead with the changes in case there is no objections
by the contacts but they neglected to respond.

If this assumption is accurate, then in principle the new text clarifies
this process, but instead of “no objection”, it says “no response”,
which in our opinion may restrict the power of the registrant to
override the approval if ICANN response in any way (without objecting)
within 10 days.

If this assumption is accurate, we would suggest to replace “no
response” with “no objection”.

Finally we need to ensure that the agreement between the Licensor and
the registrar is only valid as long as the License agreement is in force.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

===