[scott_s]

One company sold an asset to another company, and kept normal records of the sale. I don't consider that the "black market." It's just the natural secondary market. (Yes, I'm only making a semantic distinction, but I think it's misleading to use the same term to refer to, say, the cocaine economy and the above-board sale of IP addresses.)

[IgorPartola]

I think the implied point in the article is that in this case Microsoft and Nortel had to disclose the sale details, but in most other circumstances, the would not have done that. It seems that the author implies that this sale is an indication that a black market is forming, not that this was a black market transaction.

[scott_s]

The sale was a part of the normal economy. One company paid another company for something, and the sale was recorded in their books. The "something" is not illegal. The term "black market" is usually reserved for transactions that happen outside of the regular economy, usually because they are illegal.

[wmf]

The powers that be have been saying for about 20 years that IP addresses are not assets, cannot be owned, and cannot be sold. That's why people are talking about black markets.

[bdonlan]

It's not clear if IP addresses are 'assets'. The only thing keeping Microsoft from picking up IPs arbitrarily is the fact that their BGP peers will blacklist those ranges if they do something disruptive like that. If ARIN or the IANA declares the transfer invalid... well, who knows what will happen?