You're certainly technically correct that the IDN TLD could be run by someone other than the incumbent registry for the ccTLD, but since they're both approved by the same government agency it seems rather unlikely that anyone who wasn't allowed to register in one could get into the other. I don't see any politically viable alternative to the current approach, but it only addresses the issue of linguistic consistency, not acces to domains.

It is correct that the government must support the application for a string to represent a country name (e.g. "Is .?? an appropriate representation of China?"). This is out of concern that the string is not contentious for the purposes of the fast-track, and is in place of the ISO 3166-1 code used for ASCII ccTLDs today. However, for the application of the sponsoring organisation (i.e. registry operator), the same tests apply as are applied for ASCII ccTLDs, which do not require a government agency to approve a delegation. It is expected that the sponsoring organisation be located in the country and subject to local laws, but it does not an explicit government appointment or government approval. That is not to say governments won't necessarily be involved. They are important actors in the local Internet community and we expect in many countries they will be actively involved in that discussion. Anecdotally, we understand in at least some countries, the governments are in favour of seeing a different operator for the IDN ccTLD, so they may compete with the incumbent ASCII ccTLD operator.

How can you predict the future based on the past?

So new .music gTLD has no public benefit? How about this for musicians:

None of the abilities you cite even come close to requiring a .music domain name. The business model requires it. Musicians who have tested our beta demand it. The music concept is called a full "360-degree" platform. I am not required to do any business or embark on any venture. Entrepreneurs do it though. The question that you are not asking is whether those abilities add value to musicians in a consolidated effort and whether a .music would enhance the overall platform. Whether you agree with it or not is trivial because we hear it from musicians themselves on a daily basis. Listen to your customer not the critics. Target audience is key. You don't have to be a supporter of our initiative, since you have no vested interest in music. It seems like a more sound method than predicting the future based on wishful thinking. There is no wishful thinking in regards to the .music initiative. We are probably the most proactive group. It is called doing a feasibility analysis and testing your market. I doubt the 1 million signatures we received and over 300,000 social media followers are a fluke. Entrepreneurs create the future based on the present not the past. Don't mistake wishful thinking with preparation, financing, networking and development. It is easy for Phd students and most academic educators to call this wishful thinking. Academia is all about theories and essays. Step out in the real world and actually get your hands dirty and then we will talk about wishful thinking. The past can give us lessons and the present gives us what is needed right now. The future is all about meeting the needs of what is needed right now, not yesterday or 5 years ago.

The business model requires it.

Constantine, With no disrespect to your idea or business model as I have not read it outside of what you posted in your profile and in posts, I would also be skeptical if the elevator pitch bulleted those things as the main benefits of a music TLD. All those things are easily do-able now, are done now and have been for a long while. On the surface, they are not easily seen as drivers for a TLD. And it's not terribly difficult to find your favorite band's website whether it is .com or .whatever. If it is, they've really done a bad job marketing. If something like .music facilitiates and encourages these things through interest and enthusiasm, then that's a benefit and may spark the model. Often it is such hype and hysteria that fuels ideas, and the Internet has shown that many ideas that generate skepticim do take off and become game changing phenomenons, even silling things like (in my opinion) Twitter. And anything that fights back against the rotten big label music industry traditions is fine by me. I'm all for it. It's just that looking at those points, it's easy to argue that it can already be done in an TLD. I'm sure there's more meat to your proposal, but I'd be interested to find out what you mean about some of those points. Regarding tickets, the biggest issue now is the monopolistic (and in my opinion completely unfair and infuriating) dominance of Ticketmaster, which may become worse if they merge with Live Nation. If you can solve that issue, the issue that bands can't get around if they want to play a venue that has an exclusive deal with T'master, the issue that never works in favor of the fans, then you will become a saint to millions. Pearl Jam made a valient effort in the mid-90s - I still have a non-T'master souvenier ticket to one of their shows - but it was all for naught and too much effort for them to bear. Recent ticket-related issues on the Springsteen tours which infuriated him and his management were suspiciously fraudulant but despite being publicized could easily happen again, and even a powerhouse like Springsteen can't seem to stop it. If you are speaking of a secondary ticket market, that's different, although companies in that space are dime a dozen now anyway. If you are talking about tix to smaller non-T'master venues, well ok, but so what, those tix aren't hard to come by anyway. Overall, despite T'master's excessive fees and anti-customer practices, it's so much easier to get tickets now than it was back in day. I don't know how old you are, but a lot of younger people who missed the pre-Internet days of waiting overnight for days on end to get (or get rejected for) concert tickets don't understand that. At least now, even if you get shut out, you find that out within the first 5 minutes of your online attempt, and then you have numerous Craigs-list kind of options at your disposal.