The end of free domains for artists.

For years, artists and organisations involved in culture and the arts could set up an address in the art.pl domain without paying a penny. Now a change has come which may make the new terms for this domain, popular among artists, unacceptable to many.

How did it come to this?

I remember registering my first domain in the late 1990s. The registration process was nothing like registering a domain today. The art.pl domain was then administered by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling (ICM) of the University of Warsaw, and the main rule in its terms read: "The domain may not be used directly for commercial purposes (e.g. advertising, paid internet services) – in such cases registration in one of the commercial domains is recommended. The domain should be non-commercial in nature. " (source: terms § 3 point 3).

On 13 December 2013 a news item announced that registration of new domains had been suspended, although previously registered domains ending in "art.pl" could still be updated. In the years that followed, the domains continued to be supported and you could contact the administrator, for example to change DNS records. It was not exactly a dream service desk – the operation could be classed as a kind of mission of ICM UW, so response time was not a priority. Communication was by e-mail – but it worked. Rather like a memory of communist-era Poland seen in films: there were inconveniences, but it was worth waiting for something you got by allocation. Until it wasn't.

The situation changed with the obligations introduced by GDPR. On Tuesday 30 July 2019 a notice appeared on the site saying the terms published on the website had to be accepted. If a user failed to do so by 28 October 2019, the domain was to be deleted. Users of art.pl domains received a similar notice by e-mail on 29.07.2019.

On Friday 25 October 2019 a reminder about accepting the terms appeared in the news section, along with instructions stating that you had to log in to the user panel at user.art.pl. This was a new and interesting convenience, because at last, after many years, users had direct access to information about their art.pl domains. The access obtained after accepting the terms made it possible to view registered domains and those for which the user was listed as technical contact. ICM UW still did not charge any fees, but acceptance of the terms opened the door to changes that were to come in the near future.

On Tuesday 13 April 2021 a complete change of approach to the use of art.pl domains was announced. The new terms set out rules that ordinary users might have found unclear, but which for more advanced users heralded the end of an era. The administrator introduced several changes to the terms:

• the service provider may introduce fees for domain maintenance and registration, provided that the fees are set at market rates
• if fees for the services are introduced, failure to pay for the services in the next subscription period will be deemed a resignation from the services
• the domain administrator may conclude an agreement under which it transfers the domain administrator's duties to a third party,
• further changes to the terms may be introduced with seven days' notice
• the provisions of the terms concerning personal data protection were clarified

All of this was to take effect from 10 July 2021.

What was bound to happen, happened

On 28 February 2022 users were informed by e-mail that "as of 24.02.2022 ICM is transferring the administration of the art.pl domain to a new entity, Kraus Development." The message begins with the sentence: We are delighted that you have been with us for many years; today the art.pl domain extension is entering a new dimension of reality.

The new entity is introducing new terms, which come into force on 7 March 2022. In short, the art.pl website will redirect to the new address domeny.art.pl, and if a domain user wants to keep their art.pl domain, they must pay for its renewal. This must be done by 23:59 on 6 April. Otherwise, "the domain will be released and put up for sale again at a price 4 times higher than the list price".

A different perspective on reality

Just as the new service provider announces, though I would rather call it a warning, the user is entering a new dimension of reality. A reality in which there is undoubtedly no such thing as a free lunch. A dimension in which intellectual property – the domain name someone came up with – is taken over by a commercial company. The user's personal data (a domain often contains a surname) is taken over, and unless the user pays, linking it to the domain name will no longer be either simple or cheap. The user's reality is no longer the same reality that ICM UW had accustomed them to.

Either way, it's the end of free art.pl domains

It is worth asking why an institution such as the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling of the University of Warsaw, which long ago launched such a useful initiative, allowed someone to take over art.pl and charge artists for it – artists who cannot always even afford their own health insurance. The service itself is a pale imitation of what the general domain market offers, and that cake was divided long ago, with plenty to choose from. We are also talking about an address ending that for years helped creators publish presentations of their work, not an extension with huge commercial potential. Unless someone saw such potential in fleecing artists. According to WHOIS, the domain is still owned by the University of Warsaw, ICM. Perhaps the university decided to make a profit without investing itself, simply by handing over control of the domain to a new entity. I don't know, and at this stage I have no intention of speculating too much.

What is certain is that individuals and galleries using addresses in this domain now have 2 options. Look for a cheaper alternative, e.g. ending in .eu, .pl, com.pl etc. – from the wide range of extensions available at, for example, domeny.tv – or pay the new entity, for the sake of peace of mind, for something that has so far been free. Users' attachment to their own domain is certainly a tempting prospect for the new art.pl registrar, and whoever invested in the idea may well be counting on it. It is a pity that all of this is about financial gain from something that generates no costs, yet helped people and organisations living from art to grow. Although it would seem that supporting creativity should be one of the basic aims of every institution, and especially of a university, there is evidently always a way to make artists' already hard lives even harder. It is a pity that a university funded by our taxes did not use this potential differently.

At the beginning of April 2022, an artist wishing to renew their *art.pl name must pay PLN 182.04 gross. And so a free domain has become the most expensive of all the .pl extensions on offer

Jarosław Migoń

sources: web.archive.org, official K.D. announcements