lbry.com/content/faq/naming.md

---
title: How does LBRY naming work? Why don’t you just assign names the same way as internet domains?
category: LBRY 101
order: 5
---
First, since there have been a lot of misconceptions about how LBRY URIs work, **it is absolutely possible to own and control a URI forever**. That is the tl;dr of this post if you don't want to read a bunch of words about how LBRY URIs work.

Assigning names optimally is a difficult problem in centralized systems. It becomes nearly impossible in decentralized ones. Just because we’re all accustomed to certain solutions doesn’t mean they aren’t seriously flawed.

Let’s look at the internet’s standard domain name system (DNS). DNS is a centralized service run by an organization called ICANN. ICANN grants registrars the ability to lease domain names for 1-year terms. Registrars pay enormous fees to participate in this system, and individuals/companies can end up paying substantial fees to maintain a particular domain. That is to say, ICANN is a pretty lucrative racket for those involved.

And the results aren’t even that good! Not only are domain names still very awkward (http://www.THENAMEIWANT.somethingelse), but they are highly vulnerable to squatters. Domain name squatting has become an industry unto itself, with speculators viewing it like owning real estate. Unfortunately, as with real estate, the market is opaque and transaction costs are high. Unlike real estate, the scarcity of ICANN domains is basically artificial, depending on a committee to approve new top-level domains (TLDs) at their whim.

So we thought, “what if there were a better way?” Consulting with economists, we devised LBRY’s nameclaim system. LBRY URIs support four types of resolution:

| Type | Syntax | Resolution |
| --- | --- |
| **Permanent** | `lbry://<name>#<claim_id>` | A fixed id for a claim to a name, this id stays the same if the claim is updated. |
| **Vanity** | `lbry://<name>` | The claim to the name with the most credits committed towards it (like voting) - the sum of the credits committed in the claim and any claim supports. |
| **Channel** | `lbry://<@channel_name>` | A claim containing a public key, the private counterpart is used for signing other name claims. Channel claims can be specified in the uri with the `#` modifier, and the unmodified uri has vanity resolution. |
| **Signed** | `lbry://<@channel_name>/<example>` | The claim to `<example>` in the channel of (signed by) `<@channel_name>`. The channel claim defaults to the vanity resolution, but can be specified with the `#` modifier given before the `/`.

About now you're probably wondering, "what's a claim?". Name claims, as their title would suggest, are made to a human readable name. The claim contains serialized data, which allows it to store a very little bit for a specific purpose, or to point to something else. This format is flexible, allowing support for many use cases to be added. Currently, claims contain encoded channel identities and download streams.

Our bet is that vanity names will be controlled by the people who get the most value out of them – which is almost always the creator of the content. Radiohead would get a lot more value out of lbry://amoonshapedpool than a squatter, pirate, or troll.

Before jumping to conclusions about the system for vanity URLs, here are a few key details:

1. **Names aren’t bought, only reserved – no credits are lost, only put on deposit.** If you win the auction for a name, your credits are held with that name until you decide to withdraw them (at any time you wish). You aren’t buying the name from anyone and no one profits off of the transfer of names. It’s just a test of who is willing to deposit the most credits toward a name. The only cost is that you can’t spend the credits on content or cash them out while they are reserving a name.

2. **The longer a name is held, the longer the holder has to counterbid.** You don’t just lose the name immediately if a bigger bidder comes along – especially if you’ve held it for awhile. The time to counterbid scales up to ~1 week.

3. **Other users can pledge credits to support the nameclaim of a creator they like.** If you claim lbry://bestmovieever and your film lives up to the hype, users may show their support by pledging some credits to make sure you hold onto that name.

4. **Names are not like Youtube channels; they’re more like search terms.** However, publishers can use a claim to a name for much the same purpose, with a "channel" claim. The uri for these claims support allow specifying other claims made by that publisher easily, like `lbry://@UCBerkeley/ucb-P7Wjq025f-Q` or `lbry://@oscopelabs/itsadisaster-sd`. Additionally, with the `#<claim_id>` syntax publishers have uris that are permanent and embeddable, where resolution is not subject to the bidding system. The only time these claims cannot be resolved is if the publisher removes the specified claim, the decision is theirs. The bidding system is only meant to get traffic from users trying to “discover” your content through the naming system. Since every comedy video would want to be at lbry://comedy, the nameclaim system allows the name to go to the creator who can make the most revenue off of it.

No doubt it is unlike anything we've seen before on the net. For creators, it's a tradeoff. You might lose a valuable name, but you also don't have to worry about people squatting on the best names. Squatting has plagued projects like Namecoin and is only (poorly) resolved by ICANN at the cost of much expense and centralization.

Our economic advisor Alex Tabarrok notes:

>“Auctions have many great properties, but the public doesn’t like auctions very much. Although participating in an auction is fun for some; others find it annoying. It requires inputs of time and risk, and no one likes being outbid at the last minute.”

So, the short answer is that we’re aware that this an experiment within an experiment. We’re trying to solve a very hard problem in a novel way. It’s important to note that LBRY doesn't depend on the naming system, but we're committed to giving it a chance.