# Re trademarks/obscenity/URNs

Terry Allen (terry@ora.com)
Wed, 18 May 1994 07:37:59 PDT

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    Message-Id: <199405181437.HAA17229@rock>

    From: Terry Allen <terry@ora.com>

    Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 07:37:59 PDT

    To: uri@bunyip.com

    Subject: Re trademarks/obscenity/URNs

I'm still catching up with recent traffic on this list, but
Larry brings up a new issue:

| I've been worried for some time about possible difficulties if a URN
| scheme is chosen that relies on DNS names, partly because of the issue
| of trademark registration. Currently, for example, Adam Curry is being
| asked to no longer use the name 'mtv.com'. Now, suppose that Adam has
| used a URN instead of a URL for
| http://www.mtv.com/misc/I-quit.html
| and has called it
| urn:mtv.com/I-quit
| Now, suppose that MTV wins their suit, and prevents Adam Curry from
| using 'mtv' for commercial purposes. Would Adam Curry have to go out
| and get a new URN?

Probably, but not because the URN rules would require it.
I think that the URN, once assigned, can't be revoked. Suppose
the URN had been employed in a CD-ROM, which can be loaded onto
a system now or any time in the future (until the technology
becomes obsolete). That URN would keep popping up any time someone
loaded the old CD. Perhaps no URN resolution service would handle
it (for copyright or other reasons), but the URN can't be made to go
away once it's been put in use.

[ . . . ]

| A second (but less serious problem) might be people using obscenities
| in the names of their documents. For example, might there be some
| libraries that can't even say "Sorry, we don't have
| urn:obscene.org/f**k.y*u"?

Not quite like the California DMV and obscene vanity plates (the DMV
refuses to issue them or tries to recall them once they are issued
by oversight. Again, a resolution service might blackball such a URN;
a library that had the object but didn't like the URN could assign
another URN to it, though..

BTW, how do we ensure that no two naming authorities are known
by the same string (which might cause their name spaces to
overlap)?

    --
    Terry Allen  (terry@ora.com)
    Editor, Digital Media Group
    O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
    Sebastopol, Calif., 95472

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