18(b) How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?

Prototypical answer:

18.2 How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?

The key benefits to all stakeholders of the .ART gTLD are derived from the intrinsic link of the TLD string to the Art community, and they include:
• The specificity and applicability of its policies to the values embodied by the Art community;
• The support and enhancement of relationships among Artists, audiences, collectors, art institutions, art educators, arts organizers and art sponsors;
• The ability to design and develop the name space from inception; and
• A clear accountability to the Art community.

The specificity and applicability of the .ART gTLD string and the gTLD policies, will enable registrants to communicate in a way that demonstrates their commitment to Art. Thanks to reduced contention potential because the TLD is reserved for the Art community, an Art community member is more likely to be able to register a name that matches her⁄his⁄its needs.

The ability to design and develop a planned portion of the name space creates a strong base of predictable and memorable names that will facilitate access to key resources for users. Predictability relates to both the choice of the name and the content the user may expect from a name corresponding to a certain pattern.

With the planned reservation of key names and their controlled allocation, other names registered on a first-come-first-served basis will generally be highly memorable and predictable. The launch process and the community nexus compliance program are designed to achieve a high degree of relevance of .ART domain names for the artists, performers, organizers, sponsors and protectors of Art.

The focus on Artists and online communication in the .ART gTLD community facilitates clear and easy communications from, to and within the Art community. It also creates value for consumers of the Arts by establishing the meaning and reputation of the domains ending in .ART.

Because the arts themselves generate immensely valuable intellectual properties the .ART TLD will have a policy providing strong intellectual property support, including strong protections against ambush marketing (the illegitimate use of advertising opportunities related to a Art and Artists).

This provides high value to local and international trademark holders whose brands are intrinsically Art-related: for those who use it, it is a token of legitimate use based on the production or other forms of contribution to Art. For those who do not wish to register names under .ART, defensive registrations are unnecessary thanks to the high degree of protection against trademark infringement in the .ART registration policy. For Internet users interested in Art, it facilitates intuitive access to the Art content they are interested in. Conversely, for organizers of Art, be they associations, schools, art galleries or dealers and collectors, it helps establish an easy-to find channel to their members, audiences, consumers and for the public at large. Since copyright and moral rights are fundamentally author and artist generated rights, the .ART gTLD will become synonymous with respectful attention to intellectual property rights and author’s rights as applied in the arts and a welcome vehicle for educational outreach within the arts on the subject.

It is critical to understand that the distinctiveness of the .ART gTLD provides registrants, as artists or as art-centric organizations, with a pure opportunity to establish authentic identity on the Internet for themselves. The .com TLD suggests commercial endeavors that many in the arts do not identify themselves as pursuing. The .net TLD suggests an emphasis on technology, which may be a contradiction to many artistic pursuits. The .org TLD suggests an identity to an organization, which for many artists defeats the whole experience of being in the arts. Country-specific TLDs limit the ability of the arts, as a matter of identity, to soar beyond borders and contribute to world cultural development.

Art is universal and providing identity to the arts is a universal good.

18.2.1 What is the goal of your proposed gTLD in terms of areas of specialty, service levels, or reputation?

The goal of the .ART gTLD is the focus on the needs of the Art community as defined in these answers. Service levels will match or exceed the high end of currently existing TLDs. The support of the .ART gTLD by CORE, and CORE’s strong service record, is evidence of the high value placed on service levels and reputation and what can be expected with the .ART gTLD. The .ART gTLD registry will vigorously build and defend the reputation of .ART as an orderly and progressive TLD for the Art community.

18.2.1.1 Potential Business Models
For the creation, operation and funding of the .ART gTLD, Dadotart has partnered with CORE Association (“CORE”), an international not-for-profit organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, aiming to operate TLDs in the public trust. CORE has been among the promoters of the .museum gTLD. Dadotart is still analyzing potential use case options on the type of domain names that will be permitted to be registered, by whom and when registration will be permitted for defined domain name types. This analysis will also be undertaken by an independent Policy Advisory Board (PAB) supported by Dadotart and CORE, for the purpose of recommending policy and best practice advice for the .ART gTLD and for any other Art-themed gTLD that may later wish to voluntarily adopt its best practices.
It is anticipated that the PAB will provide an opportunity for leading world arts organizations and prominent artists to participate in key advisory capacities during the decision making process. Dadotart and CORE will approach The Getty Trust, the UNESCO secretariat, international associations for artists, musicians, photographers, dancers, and authors, cultural ministers and major art associations such as ART Basel and the World Monuments Fund to provide representatives on the PAB (or for greater levels of participation).
The current best thinking on potential business models includes the following elements. First, Dadotart is keenly aware that any new gTLD must be seeded with relevant content to drive traffic and build consumer recognition and trust. Having closely evaluated the dotAsia Pioneering program which was incorporated into the launch of the .ASIA gTLD, it is critical that this content be available as soon as possible and ideally before any general registration periods. Dadotart would ideally like to launch a series of information portals shortly after delegation. These portals in addition to driving awareness and recognition within the community, will also provide appropriate IT staff to test for a seamless and secure access to .ART domain names.
Second, as noted above, the .ART gTLD will incorporate the following minimal safeguards into any business model at the time of launch: Registrant Eligibility; Name Selection Criteria; and Authorized Usage. In addition, the current best thinking involves the initial reservation of domain names falling within three types:
(1) Names denoting genres, sub-genres or fields of activity and interests (e.g. theatre, sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, cgi, curation, etc.);
(2) In addition, a second reserved list of names of prominent Art institutions and organizations as well as Art-related and adjacent trademarks will be created; and
(3) Names of prominent Artists living or dead.
The exact composition of this reserve list will be compiled with the assistance and guidance of the PAB. There will also be a corresponding policy that will set forth the specific policy by which these reserved domain names can be registered by the appropriate entity.
Domain name registration is planned to occur on both the second and third level: at the second level (e.g. Stella.ART) and at the third level (e.g. Stella.Sculpture.ART). The PAB will define policies to ensure that name spaces are managed in accordance with all policies and in accordance with the interests of service to the Arts community. Registrant Eligibility criteria at the second level within the .ART gTLD will be deferred to PAB for development and later adoption by Dadotart. The universe of registrants that could potentially be permitted to register in accordance with any final Registrant Eligibility criteria at either the second or third level include, Artists and those who have an identifiable engagement with the Arts.
All domain names within the .ART name space would be subject to suspension and or cancellation upon the violation of the terms and conditions set forth in the domain name registration agreement. In addition, the registry will incorporate both active and passive safeguards into its operation to ensure that these registrants continue to abide by the terms and conditions set forth in the registration agreement. Following these operational best practices, Dadotart believes that the following goals and objectives can be realized.
• Provide a trusted, hierarchical, and intuitive namespace for the art community;
• Facilitate digital communication, from, to and within the art community;
• Provide a platform for the development in the digital space of the Art community;
• Promote the values of Art; and
• Allow the Arts to expand its daily relevance and influence in the Internet culture itself.


18.2.2 What do you anticipate your proposed gTLD will add to the current space, in terms of competition, differentiation, or innovation?

The Art TLD will create a name space specific to the Art community including, artists, audiences, educators, institutions, organizers, associations, sponsors and consumers of Art. The Art community has considerable economic and cultural significance in all parts of the world. The .ART TLD will therefore fill a large gap in terms of online choice. From a competition standpoint, it creates a level playing field with respect to the market power of large unspecific TLDs. It is naturally differentiated by its scope, by its governance model and by its intrinsic meaning as against other TLDs. Innovation is greatly enhanced by the proactive structured development of the name space. The development process involves an open process with the PAB identifying purpose-built community-specific services based on designated portions of the .ART name space. This approach turns worldwide resource to the benefit of the Art community and for the advancement of the global Internet.

18.2.3 What goals does your proposed gTLD have in terms of user experience?

Compared to most existing TLDs, the .ART user experience will greatly enhance predictability and memorability of domain names. The community-based focus, the orderly development process and strong intellectual property support ensure that users will generally find the services they are looking for under the names they intuitively tend to use for them.

In particular, the names genres, traditions, artists and crafts-people, as well as the acronyms of international and national Art institutions and associations, the names of Art disciplines, key terms related to various Art disciplines, the names of Art clubs, as well as important slogans or keywords for Art will be identified and registered in an organized and controlled framework. This affords users a high degree of certainty that they will find, or have found, an intended Art-related resource if the domain name ends in .ART.

Users will have greater comfort flowing from the context of naming variants: in key portions of the .ART name space, alternative names and variants (redirected to the canonical forms) will systematically be activated. Users in the Art community will be able to get accustomed to the predictability of .ART domain names. As a result, they also avoid stumbling upon typo-squatting, robotized pay-per-click traps or domain-for-sale pages.

18.2.4 Provide a complete description of the applicant’s intended registration policies in support of the goals listed above.

The registration policies are best seen along the anticipated phases of the launch: (1) creation of the PAB; (2) pre-launch phase, launch phase and; (3) general availability.

Prior to launch the PAB will be formed, a secretariat created and initial policies drafted along with a detailed implementation plan. It is anticipated that policies will be created governing:
(1) Registration eligibility with nexus rules;
(2) Name selection;
(3) Name use;
(4) Creation of the reserved lists noted above;
(5) Allocation of names placed on reserved lists;
(6) Protection for two-letter country codes at the second level; and
(7) Revocation.

During pre-launch, a limited number of names will be registered to be used for promotion of the .ART gTLD and for testing of the portals built around those names. Projects and content provision commitments will be sought and negotiated, especially for key public-interest portions of the name space built during this phase. All potential registrants and mandate holders will be subject to screening and thorough pre-validation.

During the launch phase, all registrations will be pre-validated; launch phase pre-validation depends on priority status (public service, trademark, no prior rights) but will always involve community nexus.

During the phase of general availability, community nexus will be subject to post-validation by way of an extensive compliance program. The ongoing compliance program will regularly be adapted to current needs based on experience and audit findings. Community nexus validation combined with strong protection of trademarks will help to stamp out cybersquatting and abusive registrations.

18.2.5 Will your proposed gTLD impose any measures for protecting the privacy or confidential information of registrants or users? If so, please describe any such measures

The protection of privacy and confidential information of registrants and users will comply with applicable Law, in particular the European Data Protection framework. Within the bounds of applicable regulations, the registry will implement anti-data mining measures by way of rate limitation, authenticated access or white-listing⁄black-listing, as well as tools to prevent unauthorized recourse to repetitive automated access.

18.2.6 Describe whether and in what ways outreach and communications will help to achieve your projected benefits.

The .ART gTLD will create and use specific outreach programs to achieve the .ART gTLD goals in each of its phases. Since dA can be described as primarily a vehicle that uses the Internet for outreach and communication to artists, the .ART gTLD will draw on the skills and experience of dA to deliver the best possible outreach and communications.

The outreach that dA is capable of bringing to bear can be judged simply by the metrics that define its current stature as the largest arts community on the Internet:
• It covers more than 4,500 categories of art;
• Over 20,000,000 registered members;
• Over 60,000,000 million unique visitors per month;
• Over 100,000 daily uploads of original art works;
• Over 1,250,000 comments a day;
• Artists ranging from seasoned professionals to beginners from all countries of the world; and
• Nearly 200,000 self-identified groups comprised of site members.

PAB Creation Phase—In order to ensure representation of the full spectrum of the Arts community, Dadotart will seek nominations to the PAB from established arts associations and institutions, cultural organizations as well as from the online art community. Once the PAB is formed and its initial members defined the PAB secretariat will work with the PAB to define all necessary registration, name selection and name use policies.

Pre-launch Phase—The pre-launch phase will involve implementation of all policies as well as the development of test websites and portals using .ART domain names. These portals will disseminate information on launch and registration. They will foster the intuitive usability of the .ART gTLD with a focus on the needs of the Art community. Once these domain names are active, they become an outreach mechanism in their own right because they establish the touch-and-feel of the .ART gTLD in the minds of the users.

Launch and Ongoing Registration Phase—The launch and ongoing registration phase will involve outreach mechanisms that specifically leverage participation by local artists, organizations, institutions and locally relevant trademarks and local communications mechanisms.

Promotion codes distributed through community-specific channels will serve as an ongoing form of outreach available at any time. They are also a low-cost method to achieve community nexus and to prevent abusive registrations.

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