Re: [ga] DOC Notice of Intent for contracting the IANA function
JFC Morfin wrote: rereading this, I have a question. Do you think the NTIA could permit ICANN to copyright or to restrict access to the root file? Also, in that case could they sue competition for maintaining the same file? In the US it is probably likely that the root zone would be considered not-copyrightable because it is a compendium of facts lacking in any "sweat of the brow" intellectual component or creative sequencing or indexing. However that's in the US. Other countries might take a different view and consider it a copyrightable database. (And if it is, there could be a question whether there is a right of some kind in the TLD operator regarding the NS records for the TLD and their contents.) Given its wide publication, indeed that it is intended to be published, at least in pieces, I doubt that it could be locked down as a trade secret. But that's just a guess. The question becomes rather more interesting when asked about the contents of a TLD zone like .com. --karl--
|