Thus spake "Bill Woodcock" <woody@pch.net>
On Mon, 14 Apr 2003, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
That's why RIRs lease addresses to you, not sell them -- they get to keep collecting money forever even if they do no additional work.
RIRs _allocate_ addresses, meaning that they provide the _service_ of _registering uniqueness_. You pay a _membership fee_ to support the ongoing operation of the registry, and allow it to continue providing you with the _service of uniqueness_ for your addresses.
You don't buy them, you don't lease them. You buy the service of the RIR's maintenance of a database which ensures unique allocations.
When I buy real estate, I don't have to pay yearly fees to the county clerk to keep my title "unique", nor does the clerk charge me a different fee based on the size of the parcel. They are solely concerned with the number of parcels I own and making sure nobody else claims them too. This is an accepted fee structure for a "service of uniqueness". If ARIN were truly a registry, they would charge by the prefix, not by the address, and said fees would only be incurred when a change was made. ARIN's fee structure clearly has far more in common with a landlord than with a title clerk. If it walks and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck. S Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking