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Full-Text Articles in Law

How The Blockchain Undermined Digital Ownership, Aaron Perzanowski Jul 2023

How The Blockchain Undermined Digital Ownership, Aaron Perzanowski

Washington and Lee Law Review

The shift from a market built around the sale of tangible goods to one premised on the licensing of digital content and services has done significant and lasting damage to the notion of individual ownership. The emergence of blockchain technology, while certainly not necessary to reverse these trends, promised an opportunity to attract investment and demonstrate consumer demand for marketplaces that recognize meaningful digital ownership. Simultaneously, it offered an avenue for alleviating worries about hypothetical widespread reproduction and unchecked distribution of copyrighted works. Instead, many of the most visible blockchain projects in recent years—the proliferation of new cryptocurrencies and the …


Tax Reporting As Regulation Of Digital Financial Markets, Young Ran (Christine) Kim Jul 2023

Tax Reporting As Regulation Of Digital Financial Markets, Young Ran (Christine) Kim

Faculty Articles

FTX’s recent collapse highlights the overall instability that blockchain assets and digital financial markets face. While the use of blockchain technology and crypto assets is widely prevalent, the associated market is still largely unregulated, and the future of digital asset regulation is also unclear. The lack of clarity and regulation has led to public distrust and has called for more dedicated regulation of digital assets. Among those regulatory efforts, tax policy plays an important role. This Essay introduces comprehensive regulatory frameworks for blockchain-based assets that have been introduced globally and domestically, and it shows that tax reporting is the key …


Regulating Uncertain States: A Risk-Based Policy Agenda For Quantum Technologies, Tina Dekker, Florian Martin-Bariteau Feb 2023

Regulating Uncertain States: A Risk-Based Policy Agenda For Quantum Technologies, Tina Dekker, Florian Martin-Bariteau

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Many countries are taking a national approach to developing quantum strategies with a strong focus on innovation. However, societal, ethical, legal, and policy considerations should not be an afterthought that is pushed aside by the drive for innovation. A responsible, global approach to quantum technologies that considers the legal, ethical, and societal dimensions of quantum technologies is necessary to avoid exacerbating existing global inequalities. Quantum technologies are expected to disrupt other transformative technologies whose legal landscape is still under development (e.g., artificial intelligence [‘‘AI”], blockchain, etc.). The shortcomings of global policies regarding AI and the digital context teach lessons that …


“This Artwork Is Always On Sale”: The Need For A U.S. Resale Royalty Right For Digital Visual Artists In This Technological Age, And Proof Of Concept Through The Blockchain And Nfts Explosion, Janae Camacho Jan 2023

“This Artwork Is Always On Sale”: The Need For A U.S. Resale Royalty Right For Digital Visual Artists In This Technological Age, And Proof Of Concept Through The Blockchain And Nfts Explosion, Janae Camacho

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

With the explosion of the internet, social media, non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”), and blockchain technology, there has been a shift in how people consume and commercialize art, thus resulting in the increased use of digital visual mediums to create, purchase, and receive payment for visual artwork. This increase has renewed the question of whether the United States should implement a resale royalty right for visual work artists. This question is of concern, especially in this digital age where it has become more difficult for digital visual artists to receive equitable compensation for their work, like that of their musical and written …


Regulatory Sandboxes Enable Pragmatic Blockchain Regulation, Joshua Durham Jan 2023

Regulatory Sandboxes Enable Pragmatic Blockchain Regulation, Joshua Durham

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

Since blockchain technology supports digitally-native money, the centralized chokepoints that governments have traditionally targeted to regulate commerce no longer apply to our (digital) property. However, competent regulation furthers basic public policy goals and should enable responsible innovation of this promising technology. This Article discusses pragmatic policies that enable responsible innovation by cultivating regulatory expertise required to write enforceable rules. Responsible innovation is necessary because unlike the early internet, where programmers could manipulate simple colors and text on webpages, these same individuals can now create financial services applications that manipulate actual money—we are faced with an inescapable reality that more is …


New Frontiers In Technology: Can Traditional Intellectual Property Rights Laws Be Adapted And Applied To Nfts?, Mariyah S. Wakhariya Jan 2023

New Frontiers In Technology: Can Traditional Intellectual Property Rights Laws Be Adapted And Applied To Nfts?, Mariyah S. Wakhariya

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

A decade ago, ‘NFTs’ were rarely heard of or known to anyone, unless they worked in or kept up with the tech world. However, they are not new - they have been around for almost two decades. Their popularity has grown over the past few years. ‘NFT’ stands for ‘non-fungible token’. An NFT is a digital file with a unique identity that is verified on a blockchain and is therefore not interchangeable - i.e., a kind of crypto asset, like an authentication certificate for digital artifacts. In theory, NFTs can represent almost any real or intangible property. These days, it …