Currently, there are some legal laws that deal directly with the ownership of digital goods. The first sale doctrine provides that a person who knowingly purchases a copy of a copyrighted work from the copyright owner is granted the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, regardless of the interests of the copyright owner. However, the right to distribution terminates as soon as the owner has sold that particular copy.13 The privileges created by the first sale doctrine « do not extend to a person who has acquired ownership of the copy or phonogram of the copyright owner by rental, leasing, loan or otherwise without acquiring ownership of it. » 14 In the United States, the doctrine of first sale applied primarily to physical property. The EU has taken a closer look at the right to resell downloaded software.15 This class action raises the question of whether the first-sale doctrine will require some retooling to reflect the realities of the digital age. Today, it is more important than ever that the law develop and address the various problems created by technological advances. Since the invention of the Internet, a number of seminal cases have shown how users of certain digital « goods » want to find them that reproduce exactly the same material good they know from the real world. Recently, a large number of companies have made public offerings to raise capital and have issued their own digital currencies or tokens related to the platform/game. As the popularity of the virtual currency or issuer token has increased, users can exchange the virtual currency through third-party providers, peer-to-peer transfers, and a full cash redemption. Many exchanges offer fiat-cryptocurrency exchanges, trading and investment services.
This has shifted the status of digital currencies from a method of prepaying goods or services exchangeable with a single company to a widely accepted proxy for real currency and a way to transmit legal tender between different participants. From a legal perspective, our immersion in this fully digital world challenges a number of legal concepts that have emerged from the material world, including the fundamental concept of « property. » Important issues, such as whether virtual assets qualify for « ownership » or whether new forms of ownership will emerge from the metaverse will require the attention of metaverse users and perhaps legislators as the world moves to virtual environments. Despite the lack of regulation, the use of real money to buy digital currencies, in-game items, virtual goods and tokens continues to increase. Whether it`s paying $11,000 for a Revenant Titan in Eve Online, $170,000 for a virtual chat in CryptoKitties, or $38,000 for a Dota 2 courier, people are investing more and more large sums of money in digital items, often in terms of resale. At first glance, this class action lawsuit seeks to have Amazon change its policies regarding the « purchase » of digital media content. This could potentially mean changes in the representations Amazon makes to its subscribers, so that consumers are more clearly informed that they are only buying a display license, rather than buying something they can own indefinitely. So far, it`s unclear whether the class action lawsuit is aimed at forcing Amazon to comply with its « purchase » offer or prohibiting Amazon from removing digital media content a consumer has purchased, but those effects could be created during the course of the case or if other similar lawsuits are filed in the future. Bitcoin – the ancestor of all blockchain technologies – began in 2009 with little fanfare, but literally 100 years before Bitcoin, the U.S. Copyright Act of 1909 came into effect, and it was this legislation that drove the majority of copyright understanding and jurisprudence (until the 1976 law that revised the structure and brought the United States into international cooperation in the matter. copyright). Copyright is generally a legal protocol for enforcing ownership of creative property, and throughout history, « ownership » has referred to rights relating to the exclusivity of use, the exclusion of others, and types of use.
It is therefore not surprising that the interests of copyright revolve around the same basic principles. Following the example of real estate title registries, the U.S. Copyright Office serves as both a notary and a registry – an « official » notarial timestamp of the legal existence of copyrighted documents and a custodian of those documents to serve as proof of ownership at the time of registration. Under this previous regime, « old copyright » giants like Disney, Sony, MGM, Turner, Universal Music, Time-Warner, etc. gained their value and disseminated their business models as examples of what it means to monetize a copyright. In addition to the assignment to the DACS Industry Group, the criteria of investability and liquidity are important for the index to be replicated by investable products. Eligible digital assets must: Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO): DAOs are open source blockchain protocols subject to a set of rules and integrated into smart contracts created by members of their choice that can automatically perform certain actions without the need for intermediaries. A DAO can be defined as a protocol whose objective is to secure a basket of digital assets while granting direct governance rights on this basket to the contributors to this basket. Governance rights allow contributors to vote on the approval or rejection of proposals. Asia, especially China and Vietnam, has laid legislative foundations for legislation regarding virtual currency and virtual ownership.
The U.S. has also adopted regulations for virtual currencies, but these are primarily aimed at non-gambling virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. The UK has defined the concept of « digital content » by law, and cryptocurrency investors and traders are required to pay taxes on their winnings, which are considered gambling winnings. Currently, however, there are no specific rules for owning virtual goods in the game, although the first incident – a hijacking of Zynga poker chips – took place ten years ago. Financial experts, regulators, cybersecurity specialists and economists come together to map the complex digital property landscape, which spans multiple industries, legal frameworks, sectors and structural environments. Crypto and blockchain technologies are used in virtual lotteries and casinos, closed economy games, digital exchanges, DeFi startups, initial coin offerings, digital collectibles, and a variety of other applications and offerings. A digital ownership framework could go a long way in preventing the misuse of technology and curbing speculation in all these ecosystems. If consumers don`t read these terms of use and other end-user agreements carefully, they`re likely not really knowing what they`re « buying. » Until retailers of digital media content are required to make their representations more transparent, consumers must continue to blindly read the agreements they often enter into.
