Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry-xlovecam
I am sorry to say that when the US Federal Court ruled in ICM's favor in their lawsuit against ICANN the writing was on the wall ... Pep rallies are media events — they will not trump the US Federal Courts ...
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Um... which US federal court was that? I think you are confusing the Independent Review Panel with a federal court, perhaps?
If so, then it's worth noting that the IRP decision wasn't actually binding for the ICANN Board; they could have rejected the IRP's decision -- but the Board was worried that
THEN ICM would sue them. This was a very reasonable concern on their part, as it was pretty clear that ICM did intend to sue, if the Board did not go along with the IRP's (2-1) decision.
The fact remains, however, that nothing about .XXX has been challenged in court...
yet.
If ICANN approves the proposal, which is looking pretty likely, you can bank on some bright bulb in Congress immediately introducing (in the case of a few such bright bulbs, that should be "reintroducing") a bill that would require all U.S.-based adult sites to move to .XXX.
That's when things will get interesting.
Stuart Lawley has averred in the past that he will fight any such measure to make .XXX mandatory. This is (ostensibly, at least) one reason he retained Robert Corn-Revere, a very prominent and experienced First Amendment specialist, to represent ICM.
Of course, Lawley also once promised that he would not use the number of pre-registrations of .XXX domains as evidence of sponsoring community support, and he as since gone back on that promise... so it is probably advisable to take his pledge to fight a mandatory .XXX with a grain of salt.
The good news is that any legislative attempt to force the industry (or the U.S.-based portion of it, anyway) to migrate to .XXX
will face a challenge court from
someone, whether or not Lawley lives up to his promise to fight such a law.
The bad news is that if Lawley goes back on his promise, it is pretty likely to be an entity that is against the establishment of .XXX in the first place that ends up footing the bill for the legal fight against making .XXX mandatory. (Nice, eh?)
As Brandon might say....
Fight the Bait and Switch! ;-)