On Aug 1, 2013, at 10:59 PM, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: Hi Brian, > Re the Trust's plenary slides (I was not in Berlin): > > I have an allergy to modifying the Trust Agreement unless there's an > overwhelming reason to do so. It was a very hard-won piece of text. I recognize that this was a very hard-won piece of text and agree we should put a much higher threshold in order to update it. Based on review of some recent items with legal counsel, we were advised that there were some sections that would need to be updated in order to deal with some recent requests and we felt we would ask the community for feedback if we had enough justification to make changes. >> Issue #1 >> We have recently been asked permission to >> republish the TAO with a creative commons >> license, but unfortunately the current trust >> agreement does not give the trustees the >> rights to do this > > It doesn't? You have the right to license "existing and future > intellectual property" according to clause 2.1 of the Trust Agreement. > Is there some particular property of the CC license that causes a > problem? Unfortunately based on review by counsel the answer is no, we don't under the current language. I will ask that Jorge Contreras (legal counsel) send over the specific issues if that would help. >> Issue #2 >> We cannot currently accept physical assets >> like hardware donations into the trust >> Once accepted into the trust, we would be unable >> to dispose of these items in the future if they are >> identified as no longer being needed > > It was definitely intended that the Trust would only handle > intellectual property, and that ISOC on behalf of IASA would handle > money and material property. Why change this? > > (I'm not quite sure why the Trust Agreement included the words > "and other property" in the first place. It was there from a very > early draft and was never discussed, as far as I can tell from my > 2005 email archive.) Thank you for your background on this one. Based on the review with the other trustees and legal counsel, we wanted to raise this one but it is not nearly as critical as Issue #1 or #3, and agree we have alternative methods that are used now which do include ISOC handling this for IASA. >> Issue #3 >> Once a domain name or trademark is >> registered by the trust, it cannot be >> abandoned even if it is no longer needed >> We must maintain these in perpetuity > > IANAL, but it isn't clear to me that clause 9.4 forces you to do this. > It requires you to "take reasonable steps" and to file applications "as > the Trustees deem necessary in order to maintain and protect the Trust > Assets." If you decide (and minute) that it isn't reasonable or necessary > to maintain veryolddomainname.org, where's the crime? I am also not a lawyer, but based on review with legal counsel, they assessed that the language did not allow the trust to perform the action of not maintaining a domain or trademark, and we must hold onto them indefinitely. This doesn't seem very practical, but again we want to make sure the community gets a chance to voice their thoughts on this. Thanks Chris