I'm really disappointed in Rick Wesson's testimony yesterday before the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. Personally, I think his testimony missed the mark and painted an extremely narrow and inaccurate portait of the real situation.

It also supposes that IP Interests are right. Which they are not.

Industry regulation can and does work every day. Agreeing on what that regulation looks like is the tough part. The very fact that there are dozens of firms engaged in hammering out that vision *right now* is a testament to this.

Holding registrars accountable for user behavior is not the right answer. Holding users accountable for their behavior is. Creating a framework in which accountability is rewarded and bad behaviour is punished is the only way that this problem can be effectively addressed. Creating national laws to govern an international resource will lead to failure. Continuing to move forward with the development of policy that will ultimately be contractually binding on all players will lead to the sucesses we seek.

Microsoft has done more this week to solve the problems that law enforcement is worried about than Congress ever can hope to. National law will never be as powerful a tool as rational technical solutions and appropriate contractual requirements. Technology and contracts can reach across international boundaries where law simply can't.

My real issue with Rick's testimony is that it directly plays into the hands of those that are concerned less with the accuracy of Whois data (or the good of the internet) than they are with protecting Mickey Mouse from Malaysian counterfeiters. As Susan Crawford points out " IP interests view the WHOIS database (an artifact of a gentler, academic age, and not mandated by any law) as their special red telephone information mother lode.  So they want to ensure its accuracy by mandating hugely enhanced damages if someone fails to tell the truth."

There are better ways for IP interests to get at the data they need. For instance, stepping back a bit and working with ISPs instead of trodding on them would be a good start. Getting a handle on how some of this technology works would be useful as well. I've found Traceroute and ARIN to be far more useful in tracking down hosts and owners than Domain Whois ever was.

But this will never happen. The unfortunate fact is that "Intellectual Property Interests" is simply code-speak for "a bunch of lawyers that make their money suing the pants off of people on behalf of clients that are more than happy to pay the bills and not dig too deeply into what's really going on or who it impacts". IP Interests aren't inclined to do things the hard way even if it means doing the wrong thing. Billable hours are what matters and this is what will kill the internet if allowed to continue.

(let's conveniently ignore the fact that those same "IP interests" that want you to publish an accurate representation of your personal data on the internet everytime that you register a domain name don't even publish their ICANN constituency membership roster.)

Changes are needed and they are needed soon. ISPs, Network Operators, registrants and registration providers need to make sure that they are heard. Getting involved with ICANN is a good place to start.