Intellectual property (IP) laws will be significantly harder to enforce in a world dominated by digitally monetized assets. Here’s why:
Anonymity and Pseudonymity: In traditional lawsuits, the plaintiff can usually locate the defendant. In the metaverse, users are often anonymous or pseudonymous, making them hard to find.
Seizure of Assets: Traditional payment systems and physical assets are much easier to seize or confiscate. In contrast, digital assets like cryptocurrencies are much harder to track and seize.
Imagine I create an unlicensed Superman movie as an individual and sell it online for Bitcoin or any self custodial cryptocurrency.
To enforce IP laws, authorities would need to:
As a result, enforcing IP laws would become prohibitively expensive and time-consuming, making it time consuming, costly and impractical to pursue most violators who are savvy enough to leverage these decentralized systems.