[wg-b] Why Lawyers Shouldn't Run the Internet

["John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D." <john@johnberryhill.com>]

To reinforce the point about the wisdom of re-inventing law, for which there
are alread perfectly good courts and judges to resolve disputes, comes this
chuckle from the ongoing UDRP fiasco:

Just when I thought I'd seen it all from the National Arbitration Forum -
inability to spell the domain name, inconsistent identifications of parties
to the disputes, inability to number paragraphs, the cut-and-paste nightmare
of the loanmart decision, and a string of "cancelled" domain names which
have ALL been re-registered by Russ Smith - comes the order in
"hewlittpackard.com" (see
http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/93562.html ).

It is apparently too much to ask for the distinguished arbitrators to bear
in mind that the UDRP provides three (3) possible outcomes - transfer,
cancellation, or no action.  I challenge anyone to explain to me what the
outcome was on the basis of the following order taken from the decision,
which is identified as "name cancelled" on the NAF table:

"THE UNDERSIGNED DIRECTS THAT THE DOMAIN NAME  HEWLITTPACKARD.COM"
REGISTERED BY RESPONDENT CUPCAKE CITY (HEWLITTPACKARD - DOM) BE CANCELLED
AND TRANSFERRED TO COMPLAINANT HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY.

DATED:  March 31, 2000 by Judge Carolyn Marks Johnson (Ret.), "

Cancelled or transferred?  Only her hairdresser knows for sure.  If it's a
"transfer", then not even the NAF could figure it out when they put their
table together.  I'd love to know what the affected registrar is supposed to
do with this one.  Bear in mind that they have a contractual obligation to
act in accordance with the arbitrator's decision here. Thank you WIPO for
providing this registrar with "protection from liability".

But, in at least one sense, it really doesn't matter if the arbitrators can
read the rules and understand that "cancel" and "transfer" are mutually
exclusive outcomes.  Within 24 hours of re-registering websterhall.com,
which was also "cancelled" by the NAF, Mr. Smith has received a phone call
from the complainant's attorneys demanding that he hand over the domain name
which was supposed to be "transferred" to them.  If the attorneys can't read
the decisions, it doesn't matter what they say.

Nice try guys, and thanks for playing the WIPO Internet follies.

This is what the legal "experts" have contributed to "internet stability".