Computer Law Commons^™

Nft: The Next Big Thing?, Golden Gate University School Of Law

GGU Law Review Blog

In 2021, Non-Fungible Tokens (“NFTs”) have taken the world of digital art to new heights. Artists are beginning to “tokenize” their art and sell them in NFT marketplaces for highly lucrative prices where bids can be made only with cryptocurrency. The “hype” surrounding NFTs grows by the day, thousands of new NFTs are being “minted” everyday. Even celebrities are getting involved in this digital movement. It seems however, that we have seen only the infancy of the blockchain based technology and that it may soon venture off beyond the world of digital art. For those in the legal profession, it …

Governing The Interface Between Natural And Formal Language In Smart Contracts, Joshua A.T. Fairfield, Niloufer Selvadurai

Scholarly Articles

Much of the confusion about the proper regulation of smart contracts stems from the fact that both code and law are expressed in language. Natural (human) and formal (computer) languages are profoundly different, however. Natural language in the form of a true legal contract expresses human meaning and expectation. Code simply acts, and when code acts contrary to the understanding of the parties to a contract, courts must have a theoretical and legal basis in order to intervene--which this Article provides.

Present scholarship on the governance of smart contracts centers on logistical problems relating to the effects of automation on …

Tokenized: The Law Of Non-Fungible Tokens And Unique Digital Property, Joshua A.T. Fairfield

Scholarly Articles

Markets for unique digital property--digital equivalents of rare artworks, collectible trading cards, and other assets that gain value from scarcity--have exploded in the past few years. At root is the next iteration of blockchain technology, unique digital assets called non-fungible tokens. Unlike bitcoin, where one coin is the same as another, NFTs are unique, each with different attributes. An NFT that represented ownership of Boardwalk would be quite different from one that represented Baltic Avenue.

NFTs have grown from a few early breakout successes to a rapidly developing market for unique digital treasures. The attraction to buyers is that, unlike …

Blockchain Networks As Knowledge Commons, Ilia Murtazashvili, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, Martin B. H. Weiss, Michael J. Madison

Articles

Researchers interested in blockchains are increasingly attuned to questions of governance, including how blockchains relate to government, the ways blockchains are governed, and ways blockchains can improve prospects for successful self-governance. Our paper joins this research by exploring the implications of the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to analyze governance of blockchains. Our novel contributions are making the case that blockchain networks represent knowledge commons governance, in the sense that they rely on collectively-managed technologies to pool and manage distributed information, illustrating the usefulness and novelty of the GCK methodology with an empirical case study of the evolution of Bitcoin, …

Delineating The Legal Framework For Data Protection: A Fundamental Rights Approach Or Data Propertization?, Efe Lawrence Ogbeide

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, like other key legal instruments around the globe, grants citizens the right to privacy in Article 7. The Charter, however, further provides for the right to data protection in Article 8. Simply put, the implication of Article 8 of the Charter is that the right to data protection is a fundamental right. The central question in this article is whether data protection indeed qualifies to be categorized as a fundamental right. If not, what other approach(es) to data protection may be implemented?