[ih] patents and public stewardship

[John Gilmore]

The conflict of interest between public stewards of resources that
should be public, versus the private self-interest of the people
involved in that stewardship, is ancient and ongoing.  In the Internet
community it is visible everywhere, from the IETF vs. vendors, to ISOC
vs. foo.org users, to the ICANN's secretariat, lawyers, sinecure jobs,
and junkets.  As well as in people trying to tilt the patent and
copyright laws in courts and in Congress to favor themselves.  And in
the operation of the US Congress itself.  Google spends billions to
pitch itself so the public thinks of it as Santa Claus giving away free
resources for public benefit, while making tens of billions for itself.

What was that quote about if you like sausage, don't look inside a
sausage factory?

Tom Lehrer made great songs, and releasing them for the public domain in
his later life was a good move that will help his legacy stay alive
after he's gone.  The US copyright system used to do this automatically
after 28 years, back when it was structured to benefit the public.

Vint Cerf via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> Thanks Karl, that's helpful. I like your idea for ISOC - a service that
> they could be compensated for doing.

There are other places such as the Software Freedom Conservancy that
hold patents and copyrights for free software projects that don't have
their own nonprofit infrastructure.

In general it's better to have dozens of such places.  If one place
accumulates a critical mass of valuable intellectual property, it will
end up attacked, perhaps sneakily, to obtain control of it and then use
that monopoly to make money unjustly.  If there are dozens, and one
becomes incompetent or self-interested, the whole world won't get
affected, just a little corner of it.

>                                       As you know, ISOC has a challenge
> demonstrating the level of public support it has (the so-called IRS Public
> Support Test) that requires it to show that at least 1/3 of its income
> comes from a broad range of public sources. They can only count a fraction
> of the PIR income as "public".

The Internet Society used its pull with ICANN to get tens of millions of
dollars a year for doing nothing (by getting the monopoly on .org).
Various people have various opinions on whether that was a good thing.
(I was on the ISOC Board a bit before that, and like many nonprofits,
raising funding for ISOC was always a challenge, until then.)

Hearing a complaint about how that large flow of money from overpriced
.org domains makes it hard for them to stay a legal nonprofit (*) would
be amusing, except for what happened in between.

ISOC tried to sell that monopoly for a billion dollars to a
private-equity player (in concert with a couple of high-level people who
had bolted from the ICANN monopoly to make a killing for themselves).
The only credible plan to make back the billion for the investor was to
then jack up the prices of .org domains for every nonprofit in the
world.  It took a large effort, led by people with .org domains
(including EFF.org) who didn't want to suffer so ISOC could profit, to
derail that plan.  Ultimately, self-interest scrutiny by the California
attorney general's office that regulates nonprofits (including ICANN
itself) borked the deal.  See:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Registry#Proposed_sale_of_the_Public_Interest_Registry

If I had valuable intellectual property to preserve for the freedom
and benefit of the Internet community, I would recommend choosing
its steward wisely, rather than defaulting to giving it to ISOC.

	John
	
PS: (*) I'm on the board of ARDC.net, a small nonprofit which got a
$100M windfall from the ham-radio 44/8.  We couldn't honestly claim at
that point that the public was our source of support.  We became a
private foundation rather than try to continue as a 501(c)(3) public
charity.  ISOC could do the same.  Or, ISOC could price .org domains
more cheaply, rather than raking off a big premium for its own
self-interest, at which point the money flow from PIR would lessen.
Once it was less than twice as much as what ISOC collects as general
public support, their public-charity status would be secure.  Wouldn't
that be a great outcome?