This article develops Registration Regime Theory (RRT) by treating inscription and registration not as passive containers of memory but as infrastructures for governing social time. It distinguishes inscriptionâthe external fixation of an event, claim, relation, or sign on a material or computational supportâfrom registration, the institutional authorization that allows such a trace to produce rights, identities, debts, obligations, classifications, and decisions. The central thesis is that inscription objectifies time, whereas registration authorizes objectified time. On this basis, the article reconstructs a series of overlapping registrational thresholds: durable inscription and archival accumulation; portable documents and rule at a distance; canonical and typographic replication; standardized, transferable financial claims; bureaucratic classification and synchronized administration; digital capture and interoperability; cryptographic ordering; and predictive registration. These thresholds did not singly cause the state, empire, universal religion, capitalism, or the nation-state. They expanded the durability, scale, reproducibility, and temporal reach through which those formations could be institutionalized. The digital transformation intensifies rather than abolishes this history. Blockchain redistributes technical verification and hardens chronological claims about the past, while predictive artificial intelligence converts probabilistic futures into present grounds for intervention. Their convergence places the registrable person between an increasingly persistent past and an increasingly anticipated future. The article consequently redefines sovereignty as the capacity to orchestrate the layers of a registration architectureâproduction, storage, verification, recognition, interpretation, prediction, enforcement, and contestationârather than as simple ownership of records. It also theorizes the negative space of registration: imposed non-registration, strategic opacity, erasure, and counter-registration. The concluding framework of temporal justice combines a right to recognition with rights to correction, expiry, opacity, reinvention, and an unpredicted future. RRT thereby offers a non-determinist, historically comparative framework for analyzing how power endures by organizing what may count as socially real across time.
Technological innovations are often perceived as something alien, terrifying, and monstrous. Blockchain technology that creates shared âblocksâ of information, which are interconnected and verified by the network comes as no exception. Two main features of blockchain (1) the absence of a gatekeeper organisation controlling the data, and (2) the fact that the information is rather hard to corrupt and hack, makes the technology very attractive and versatile. It is also what makes it appear frightening, especially for the traditionally centralised and hierarchical disciplines like law. As there is no one to control the data and the access to it, blockchains open a whole world of new possibilities with cryptocurrencies being one of the most popular examples.Approaching blockchain technologies in the context of J. J. Cohenâs monster theory demonstrates that they can be perceived as modern monsters. Our inability to understand the technology and the way it works makes this particular monster both fearful and desired (thesis 6), and law reacts to the fears that circulate in the society. Thus, blockchain technologies are often banned by law in a similar way as in medieval narratives dragons were banished by saints and heroes. Building on Cohenâs thesis 7, which argues that monsters show how we (mis)interpret our surroundings, this article will employ the historical perspective upon the fear of the monstrous to create a better understanding of the legal policies surrounding blockchains. By comparing current legal decisions concerning blockchain technology with the strategies of dealing with monsters, offered by medieval chronicles and collections of wonders (including William of Malmesbury and William of Newburgh), we will analyse the modern way of controlling monsters â or controlling the fear of them.
Out of Time proposes a new philosophy of law for an age in which technological, environmental, and political change outpaces the legal institutions designed to govern it. Through the original concept of the "anachronism clause," Northon SalomĂŁo de Oliveira argues that every legal system silently depends on assumptions about the world that inevitably become outdated. The central challenge of twenty-first-century jurisprudence, therefore, is not merely to create valid rules, but to develop institutions capable of recognizing and correcting their own obsolescence before legal certainty becomes legal illusion. Drawing on the works of Hans Kelsen, H. L. A. Hart, Ronald Dworkin, Robert Alexy, Lon L. Fuller, John Finnis, and other leading legal philosophers, the book examines how this hidden structural problem emerges across the defining challenges of our century, including artificial intelligence, climate change, democratic legitimacy, biotechnology, international security, economic inequality, resource sustainability, mental health, disinformation, quantum computing, space governance, decentralized finance, longevity, and persuasive technologies. Rather than treating these issues as isolated fields of regulation, Out of Time reveals them as expressions of a single philosophical question: How can law remain legitimate when the world it was designed to govern no longer exists? Blending rigorous legal theory with philosophical reflection and memorable narrative, Out of Time offers an original framework for understanding the relationship between law, time, institutional adaptation, and the future of human civilization. It is a work intended for scholars, jurists, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future of legal thought in an era of accelerating change. Philosophy of Law Jurisprudence Legal Theory Institutional Adaptation Artificial Intelligence and Law Space Law Legal Obsolescence Philosophy of Law, Jurisprudence, Legal Theory, Legal Philosophy, Constitutional Theory, Constitutional Law, Rule of Law, Legal Positivism, Natural Law, Legal Interpretation, Comparative Law, International Law, Public Law, Global Governance, Democratic Legitimacy, Human Rights, Justice Theory, Institutional Design, Institutional Adaptation, Legal Certainty, Legal Innovation, Legal Reform, Legal Obsolescence, Institutional Resilience, Adaptive Governance, Future of Law, Emerging Technologies, Law and Technology, Artificial Intelligence, AI Governance, AI Regulation, Algorithmic Decision-Making, Digital Governance, Digital Rights, Digital Society, Cyber Law, Data Governance, Quantum Computing, Quantum Law, Evidence Law, Space Law, Space Governance, Outer Space Treaty, Extraterrestrial Resources, Climate Change Law, Environmental Law, Sustainability, Intergenerational Justice, Resource Governance, Biotechnology Law, Bioethics, Longevity, Mental Health Law, Disinformation, Information Integrity, Persuasive Technology, Behavioral Regulation, Economic Inequality, Decentralized Finance, Financial Regulation, Regulatory Theory, Institutional Trust, Political Philosophy, Ethics of Technology, Future Studies, Civilization Studies, Legal Systems, Normative Theory, Twenty-First Century Law, Northon SalomĂŁo de Oliveira Northon SalomĂŁo de Oliveira ORCID: 0009-0007-4038-0609 Biography Northon SalomĂŁo de Oliveira is a Brazilian writer and jurist specializing in communication law, whose intellectual career is distinguished by its interdisciplinary approach, integrating Law, Communication Studies, Advertising, Marketing, Philosophy, Anthropology, Psychology, Psychiatry, Organizational Theory, and Literature. His scholarly work explores the dynamic relationship between law, technology, culture, and society, addressing some of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century, including climate change, artificial intelligence and automation, global governance and democracy, biotechnology and human survival, international security, economic inequality, the sustainability of natural resources, mental health, disinformation, and the ethical, philosophical, and legal reconstruction of civilization. His editorial portfolio includes books published in different international markets by distinguished publishers such as the Portuguese-Brazilian Kotter Editorial and the British Camden House, in addition to worldwide digital distribution through platforms including Amazon KDP and Google Play Books. In July 2026, he published The Odyssey (English Edition) and A Odisseia (Brazilian Edition), companion collections featuring a curated selection of sixty works chosen by his readers. Beyond his books, he has authored more than 1,500 articles published in academic repositories, legal platforms, and major media outlets, including SSRN (Elsevier), SciELO, Academia.edu, Zenodo (CERN), Folha de S.Paulo, Administradores, Jus, and Jusbrasil.
Abstract AI-generated forgeries of financial documentsâsuch as invoices, audit reports, ledgers, and balance sheetsâexpose a critical fault line in legal proof. These hybrid visualâtextual artefacts derive evidentiary authority from their jurisvisual form: logos, seals, signatures, and tabular architecture, whose visual grammar indexes authenticity and institutional power. Drawing on Charles Sanders Peirceâs triadic semiotics (representamenâobjectâinterpretant), this study demonstrates that deepfake technologies dissolve the sign-relation underwriting documentary proof by engineering synthetic representamina that mimic the indexical and symbolic features of authentic documents. At the same time, the underlying financial event may be absent. The evidentiary economy is thereby reconfigured within a videosphere where image-like documents perform the truth. This article advances a layered remediation architecture: (i) provenance anchoring through cryptographic signatures, content hashing, and distributed ledgers; (ii) content forensics integrating AI-assisted detection with forensic semioticsâindexical stress tests and symbolic authenticity challenges; and (iii) procedural safeguards including calibrated evidentiary thresholds, adversarial authenticity hearings, and robust chain-of-custody protocols. It argues that restoring evidentiary confidence requires cultivating semiotic literacy among judges, auditors, and legal practitioners as core professional competence, enabling legal systems to navigate the post-textual landscape with epistemic rigour.
This working paper is an output of the Community Privacy Residency held in Taipei in 2025. https://community-privacy.github.io/ Keywords: Image-based abuse; non-consensual intimate imagery; evidentiary privacy; protected identity; sexual autonomy; Global South; digital evidence; hash evidence; zero-knowledge proofs; privacy-enhancing cryptography; survivor-auditable governance.
Marcus Smith, Nico Leslie, Gillian Hughes, Rachael Mulheron
Abstract This chapter explores the complex relationship between money, cryptocurrencies, and negotiable instruments in law. It begins by defining money and discussing its legal tender status, highlighting its role as a store of value and its legal character. The chapter then examines cryptocurrencies, focusing on their nature, their status as property, and the legal debates surrounding their classification as money due to the absence of state backing. It distinguishes between pure intangibles and documentary intangibles, such as negotiable instruments. Finally, the chapter addresses the implications of technological advancements like dematerialization, which may redefine the understanding and transfer of documentary intangibles in the future.
Abstract This paper examines current shortcomings of existing legal principles in addressing the immaterial and a-territorial nature of blockchain technology, which challenges foundational legal concepts such as sovereignty and territoriality. It explores how blockchainâs operational framework disrupts traditional legal discourse, particularly in the realm of Private International Law. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the inadequacies of the lex situs principle when applied to crypto assets and blockchain networks. Established legal categories struggle to accommodate inherently digital assets like Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), which defy territory-based classifications within Private International Law. To address these challenges, the paper proposes integrating RicĆurâs theories on narration as a means of reconciling legal discourse with blockchain technologies. By viewing legal principles through the lens of narrative structures, this approach suggests two complementary solutions: incorporating token ecologies into the existing legal framework or reimagining a token-centric legal order. Methodologically, the argument draws on RicĆurâs concept of triple mimesis, demonstrating how established legal principles can be adapted to the digital landscape through a narrative-driven perspective.
The article was first published in English language by Fordham Law Review. For more information, please contact tmelnick@law.fordham.edu For original publication: Bobek, H. (2023). To mint or not to mint: non-fungible tokens and the right of publicity. Fordham Law Review, 92(2), 639. Publication URL: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol92/iss2/12 Objective: to study the legal regulation of NFT technology under the US legislation and to develop proposals to minimize offenses involving its use, including those related to violations of the right to publicity. Methods: dialectical approach to cognition of social phenomena, allowing to analyze them in historical development and functioning in the context of the totality of objective and subjective factors, which predetermined the following research methods formal-logical and sociological. Results: NFT technology creates new challenges in the field of protecting the right to publicity. Using NFT to violate the right to publicity creates serious difficulties for copyright holders seeking compensation for the damage caused. The difficulty of protecting the right to publicity in this market is due to the unique democratic nature of the token, the widespread anonymity of NFTs and the irreversibility of transactions with them, as well as the uncertainty of contractual terms with respect to secondary buyers. Scientific novelty: based on the analysis of judicial practice, the article examines the issues of violation of the right to publicity arising in connection with the NFT and possible approaches to this problem. Legal scholars and commentators argue that certain features of NFTs pose pronounced threats to the right of publicity, namely the technologyâs novelty, democratized nature, anonymization of creators, transferability across platforms, and immutability. To combat these threats, the author proposes that rights owners should enter into right of publicity license agreements; that NFT platforms should strengthen their terms of service and develop higher barriers of entry for users; and, finally, that courts should order that infringing NFTs be âburnedâ. Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific, pedagogical and law enforcement activities when considering the issues related to the legal regulation of NFT technology.
This study aims to propose a website for the preservation and accessibility of street art in TĂŒrkiye with crowdsourcing methods. The proposed website is based on the literature about the usability of street art websites. The related literature showed that the websites are weak regarding institutional information and policies, including copying and copyrights, and that descriptive data regarding the works is insufficient. Additionally, it has been observed that the most common crowdsourcing method is collection completion. Street artworks created by street artists and then converted into digital form are also prone to change and metamorphosis, requiring specific digital solutions for long-term preservation. The rise of Web3 technologies offers new opportunities to overcome the challenges of documenting, preserving, and sharing these digital street arts. It is thought that this study, conducted in the case of TĂŒrkiye, will contribute to the literature on preserving and accessing street art as a cultural heritage.
In competition law, where economic analysis and pragmatism reign, methods of interpretation generally seem to have distinctly marginal relevance. Quite rarely do antitrust or merger decisions depend on whether the applicable provisions are interpreted âtextuallyâ or âpurposivelyâ.1 Yet the Court of Justice of the European Unionâs (EU) appellate judgment in Illumina/Grail,2 overturning the General Court of the EU,3 almost reads like a manual on methods of legal interpretation. Based on a literal, historical, contextual, and teleological (purposive) reading of Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR),4 the Court of Justice held that a national competition authority may not request the European Commission to examine a merger that does not meet the relevant national merger thresholds. The judgment is a setback to the Commissionâs attempts to work around the limits of turnover-based thresholds for the assessment of so-called âkiller acquisitionsâ. This contribution makes three main claims. First, while the Court of Justice goes to great lengths to demonstrate that its own historical, contextual, and teleological interpretation of Article 22 is better than that of the General Court, from a strictly legal perspective, its judgment is no more or less convincing than that of the General Court. At important points, the reasoning of the Court of Justice ties itself in knots, and the judgment is equally flawed in its attempt to establish the âoriginal meaningâ of Article 22 EUMR. Secondly, the Illumina/Grail judgmentâs reliance on the various policy objectives of the EU Merger Regulation, particularly its effectiveness, predictability, and legal certainty, in my view fails to persuasively show that its own decision better ensures predictability and legal certainty than the General Courtâs judgment. Although the Court of Justiceâs judgment is based on inconclusive and partly contradictory arguments, its conclusion is not obviously wrong either. So, what to make of Illumina/Grail? My third claim is that the judgment seems primarily shaped by a judicial intuition, or âhunchâ, that there is something fishy about the Commissionâs interpretation of Article 22. It seems, more specifically, that the Commission was unable to explain and justify its new understanding of the alleged original meaning of Article 22: before the Illumina/Grail merger, for several years, the Commission had instead âdeveloped a practice of discouraging Member States from requesting under Article 22 the referral of transactions for which they did not have jurisdictionâ.5 Though the General Court showed that the literal meaning of Article 22 essentially endorses the Commissionâs novel viewpoint, there is something uncanny about how the Commission exercised administrative discretion to take back control over killer acquisitions and other potentially problematic mergers that nonetheless do not meet European and national notification thresholds. The hunch is that this cannot be within the scope of the Commissionâs administrative discretion. And although all of the Court of Justiceâs arguments are either inconclusive or can be turned on their head (or both), the outcome of the case is entirely attuned to this hunch. Originalism is the predominant method of constitutional interpretation in American law. In Europe, most jurisdictions eschew a myopic focus on one particular method of interpretation, rather recognizing the utility of various methods such as literal, contextual, historical and teleological interpretation. Even in Europe, however, interpreting statutes is often aimed at finding the original intention of the legislature, though it is usually believed that this intention may be identified not only through preparatory documents, but also through scrutiny of the text, context, and purpose of the provision. In this sense, statutory interpretation in many jurisdictions including EU law is frequently a search for the âoriginal meaningâ of the provision. This search for original meaning may include the question of how the legislature may have intended the provision to apply to changing, possibly even unforeseen, circumstances. Thus, the core question is the following: how did the EU legislature intend Article 22 to apply to below-threshold mergers? Through a literal, historical, contextual, and teleological investigation of Article 22, both the General Court and the Court of Justice were trying to answer this question. In this methodological sense, they were on the same originalist page. One of the starting points of this inquiry is whether we should look at the original meaning of the initial adoption of the Article 22 referral mechanism in Regulation 4064/89, or whether, instead, the analysis should focus on the original meaning of Article 22 of the succeeding Regulation 139/2004. The General Court in particular held that the meaning of Article 22 had changed since the adoption of Regulation 4064/89.6 As the number of national merger control systems increased after 1989, according to the General Court, Article 22 no longer applied only to referrals by Member States without any merger control; it also became a means to strengthen merger control of below-threshold concentrations with cross-border effects and to ensure the âone-stop-shopâ principle in EU merger control.7 At the hearing before the Court of Justice, however, the Commission was asked precisely whether the meaning of Article 22 had changed since 1989, which the Commission answered in the negative.8 The Court of Justice was not convinced either.9 More generally, in the eyes of the Court of Justice, the General Courtâs originalism was flawed. Arguably, the Court of Justice did not dismiss outright the historical, contextual, and teleological arguments on which the General Court had relied upon. Rather, the Court of Justice considered them inconclusive. In turn, the Court relied on other contextual and teleological arguments that, in its view, were dispositive to reach another outcome. For example, the General Court had relied on several Commission documents from the 1990s and early 2000s to cast light on the alleged intention of the legislature in regard to the proper interpretation of Article 22.10 It had also referred to several contextual factors, including, but not limited to the fact that the notification thresholds in Article 1 of the EU Merger Regulation are âwithout prejudice to [âŠ] Article 22â,11 the fact that Article 22(1) does not expressly require the national competition authority requesting a referral to the Commission to be itself competent to assess the merger,12 and the fact that the Commission may inform any Member State that a concentration, in the Commissionâs view, fulfils the criteria of Article 22(1).13 According to the Court of Justice, these factors may be relevant but do not conclusively establish the conclusions of the Commission and the General Court.14 The reason is that the General Court had failed to also take into account other contextual factors. These other contextual factors include, notably, that Article 22 differs from Article 4(5) EUMR, which provides for another referral mechanism for concentrations that do not have a European dimension on the basis of the EUMRâs notification thresholds, but which are capable of acquiring such a dimension under specific conditions.15 In contrast, mergers referred to the Commission under Article 22 do not have, nor do they acquire, a European dimension; the Commission rather replaces the national referring authority or authorities, which according to the Court of Justice implies that the referring authority or authorities must be competent in the first place.16 Like the contextual factors taken into account by the General Court, however, this argumentâalthough indeed it supports Illumina and Grailâs positionâdoes not conclusively establish the right interpretation of Article 22. It is not clear why the argument based on Article 4(5) EUMR carries more weight than the contextual factors relied upon by the General Court. The same applies to the Court of Justiceâs argument that Article 22 should be interpreted in light of Article 1(4) and (5) EUMR, which enable the Council to revise the EUMRâs notification thresholds.17 The fact that the Council is competent to revise the jurisdictional scope of the EUMR in general surely does not irrefutably establish that an exception, which has already been deliberately included in the same instrument by the same legislature, should be interpreted more narrowly than its express formulation suggests. A similar critique applies to the Court of Justiceâs teleological interpretation. The Court rejects the General Courtâs reliance on recital 11 of the EUMR, which describes the various referral mechanism in the EUMR as a âcorrective mechanismâ. The General Court inferred from this recital that Article 22 intends to remedy deficiencies in the merger control system.18 The Court of Justice counters that recital 11 was only inserted in Regulation 139/2004 and was not included in its predecessor, Regulation 4064/89.19 In other words, that recital cannot support a finding of the âoriginal intentâ of the EU legislature regarding the Article 22 referral mechanism. But that does not prove the contrary proposition either. The Court of Justice moves on and observes recital 15 of the EUMR, which states, among others, that when a national authority refers a merger under Article 22, â[o]ther Member States which are also competent to review the concentration should be able to join the requestâ (emphasis added).20 It follows, says the Court, that the initial Member State to request the referral of a merger to the Commission must be competent.21 However, the core case to which Article 22 undisputably applies is a situation where a Member State does not have any national merger control rules and wishes the Commission to assess a particular concentration.22 In such a situation, the Member State requesting the referral obviously is not competent to scrutinize the concentration simply because it has no merger control system at all. On this point, the reasoning of the Court of Justice is apparently contradictory. Interestingly, while the Court of Justice rejects on originalist grounds the teleological arguments made by the General Court, the Courtâs claim that it has not been established that Article 22 is âintended to remedy deficiencies in the control system inherent in a scheme based principally on turnover thresholdsâ23 is unsupported by any reference to legislative history. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: this truism poses a major challenge for any attempt to find the original meaning of Article 22 (and, arguably, to originalism as a method of interpretation in general). Even more remarkably, the Court of Justice glances over the apparent contradiction between, on the one hand, the claim that Article 22, read in light of recital 11, only intends to correct the allocation of competences between the Commission and the national authorities,24 and, on the other hand, the undisputed fact that Article 22 intends to apply to a situation where the referring Member State does not have any national merger control rules.25 How can Article 22 correct the allocation of competences between the Commission and a national authority which lacks any competence to assess a concentration because its Member State does not have a system of merger control? In other words, up to paragraph 201, none of the Courtâs arguments proverbially knock down the General Courtâs judgment. Let us consider a simple thought experiment that reverses the respective positions of the EU courts: suppose the General Court had invoked all of the contextual and teleological reasons that the Court of Justice relies on, to conclude that Article 22 should be interpreted as precluding a referral below the national notification thresholds. The Court of Justice could have dismissed any of these as inconclusive in exactly the same way that it dismissed the General Courtâs actual reasoning, and could have relied on exactly those arguments provided by the (actual) General Courtâs judgment to conclude that a referral below national notification thresholds is possible. The core of the Court of Justiceâs reasoning, in fact, seems to be in paragraphs 202 to 218, where it relies on âa number of objectives which [the EUMR], taken as a whole, seeks to pursueâ,26 namely the âone-stop-shopâ principle, a clear allocation of tasks between the Commission and the Member States, and more generally the âeffectiveness, predictability and legal certainty that must be guaranteed to the parties to a concentrationâ.27 These objectives were quite clearly salient for the adoption of the EUMR, but as such they are inconclusive in regard to the proper interpretation of Article 22. This is why the Court of Justice criticizes the General Court, not for neglecting these objectives, but for âupset[ting] the balanceâ among them.28 While predictability and legal certainty are legal principles, they are vague ones that are always balanced against other objectives. The exact balance among them often remains unsettled by legislation itself, which makes this primarily a policy question. Indeed, in paragraphs 202 to 218, we mostly find arguments of policy, not originalism. And even though the Court throws in a reference to the principle of institutional balance as part of EU constitutional law,29 such is no longer part of the ambition to conclusively establish the original meaning of Article 22. From paragraph 202 onwards, originalism is left behind. Thus, the search for the ârealâ or âoriginalâ intent of the EU legislature, for all the intellectual heavy lifting in both EU Courtsâ judgments, ends quite disappointingly. Both courts did not conclusively establish the original meaning of Article 22. Like the major debates over what the Framers of the US Constitution actually intended, the quest for the original meaning of Article 22 is probably a dead end.30 If the Court of Justiceâs originalist reasoning is equally flawed as the General Courtâs, what about the policy arguments that the Court relied on in paragraphs 202 to 218âthe âeffectiveness, predictability and legal certainty that must be guaranteed to the parties to a concentrationâ?31 The Court connects effectiveness, predictability, and legal certainty to the requirements of âsound administrationâ and âthe business worldâ.32 For the Court, it follows that any exceptions to the turnover-based thresholds for notification should be interpreted narrowly. In paragraph 209, the Court almost goes as far as to say that turnover-based thresholds are indispensable for legal certainty. It would be for the EU legislature to amend these thresholds, not for the Commission to circumvent them through Article 22.33 The gap in the reasoning of the Court is that, despite the Courtâs strong emphasis on the âcardinal importanceâ of turnover-based thresholds34 and the prerogative of the legislature to amend them,35 it is precisely the legislature that expressly provided for multiple referral mechanisms deviating from these turnover-based notification thresholds. According to the plain meaning of Article 22, there is no requirement that the concentration meets any national notification threshold, let alone a turnover-based one. It is also not obvious that the interpretation by the Court of Justice results in a greater degree of legal certainty than the General Courtâs judgment. The Court may have been anxious about a radical expansion of the Commissionâs powers, in the words of Advocate General Emiliou, to review almost any concentration, occurring anywhere in the world, regardless of undertakingsâ turnover and presence in the European Union and the of the and at any in including after the of the However, as the Advocate General the scope of Article 22 is limited by criteria that a concentration must meet in to be referred to the it must between the Member States, and it must to competition within the of the Member State or States the One may not be convinced that these criteria are to the jurisdictional scope of the EUMR. On the other hand, the of for the national competition authority and the Commission to demonstrate that the concentration competition within the Member the request cannot be dismissed as The Court of Justice these criteria in its strong support of turnover-based thresholds, in the of their in Article 22. Secondly, as other have Illumina/Grail Member States to for to scrutinize concentrations below their notification the Court of Justiceâs in fact, the Commission already to Member States to make of such A of these would Illumina/Grail and may the predictability and legal certainty at the core of the Courtâs to an expansion of national requirements and to those provided by Article the Court of Justice refers to the for national competition authorities to scrutinize concentrations below national notification thresholds under Article the However, this predictability and legal certainty to the of an Article 22 In to the and more even than the of powers, the of Article may take several years, which the outcome and are to The Court also that Member States may also their national notification the Courtâs to the legislative is particularly however, is usually in regard to the interpretation of vague or As Article 22 is A in legal has on the factors that may judicial the more of this are the of the so-called American legal including and as as pragmatism in for example, by Though these as a there are and methodological among for relies on economic analysis as one of the in In contrast, in an in US the of and in judicial describes the as or that a seems and to make decision that seems to the according to and general of view, as the that to from the is right in general is the of a of into the and of and make no attempt to answer this question. In any judicial hunch may a better of Illumina/Grail than the legal and policy arguments invoked in the judgment. is the hunch Illumina/Grail? It is essentially that a major in the law and practice of Article 22 referrals simply should not be by a of of the in to particular policy objectives. The Commissionâs on to have been particularly by three main of a Commission to scrutinize the of originalist support for the Commissionâs and the of a for the Commissionâs of about Article 22 As to the first as Advocate General that one by means of an original interpretation of Article 22 EUMR, the Commission the to review almost any concentration, occurring anywhere in the world, regardless of undertakingsâ turnover and presence in the European Union and the of the and at any in including after the of the the Commissionâs was that that not be the case as the Commission has no in that frequently and with in that This answer may be but it is the wrong More specifically, this is a wrong answer to a in search of a interpretation of Article 22. The better by the that its under Article 22 remains by the criteria of that as in the Advocate General that 15 may be to those and that this interpretation of Article 22 may scrutiny of a concentration that not to have and effects within the referring Member what this is problematic may be in light of the equally for the assessment of a concentration by the However, the Court of Justice to the provided by Article 22 and apparently them The by the Court of Justice is that and as provided by turnover-based notification thresholds, are of âcardinal for âthe business It is to with this viewpoint, even though it is an rather than an originalist or strictly legal The namely of originalist support for the Commissionâs also clear from the Advocate On the Commission was apparently on the exact historical of its interpretation of Article 22: The Commission was asked at the hearing whether the alleged scope of is the first of Article 22(1) EUMR was already there in the original in when that provision was in or when the new EUMR was in The Commission without that such a scope was there from the that in Article as in the of this was also a wrong Advocate General that such is the the of documents the Regulation is less the with which the Commission had that the scope of Article 22 had been from the was not expressly by any of the legislative documents from either before the adoption of Regulation or between and of express originalist support of not problematic in legal However, about an to scrutinize mergers not any of the national notification thresholds a hunch to the could be by other but this probably The Commission apparently could This to the third that to have the Commissionâs namely the of a for the Commissionâs of about Article 22. The reasons for this policy are and no but can it also be by a legal The for a legal argument would be the in the is interpretation to However, the Court of Justice is generally not to itself to a literal interpretation even where the is or seems to be in its the Commission in regard to its practice that the of national for merger control in almost all Member States, the in the discretion to it by the Merger Regulation, a practice of discouraging referral under Article 22 from Member States that did not have original over the at (emphasis The clearly aimed to demonstrate that the Commissionâs practice was not by any of law. However, this was not by originalist argument either. it that the Commission was simply unable to answer about the basis of its in Thus, it was unable to the hunch that there was something fishy about this what the Commission could in to salient but inconclusive legislative was the plain meaning of Article 22 and the of able to take control over killer These are not But on the we a expansion of administrative about whether such expansion was intended by the legislature, and a clear between this expansion and policy of the Commission This does not and it probably a judicial hunch that to Illumina/Grail is a first of all because of the methodological and of both the General Courtâs and the Court of Justiceâs The judgment is also however, because of the with which the Court of Justice rejects the General Courtâs reasoning as without a clearly of reasoning In whether this judgment better ensure predictability and legal certainty remains to be but the of and Article would make this If the outcome in Illumina/Grail is principally the of a judicial this is not to the judgment most are at partly by intuition, and it may not be a However, Illumina/Grail and the judicial hunch also to a in the between the General Court and the Court of Justice, namely the number of in which the General Court is This number seems may be many reasons for such and they would be to Illumina/Grail the question of how the Court of Justice whether the General Court has made an of and what exactly is an of in a like EU competition law, where law, and policy are The Court of Justice may have considered the General Courtâs reasoning inconclusive and but is that to of an of there is no to be simply because the answer to the originalist question of what the legislature to is are not because we are but we are only because we are reads the by US Court Justice This is for all This however, should not and from the important question of whether they with a judgment either because it is or because a judgment would have been in the law, policy, and hunch are to
The technological evolution has not only opened new frontiers but has also become an indispensable part of our daily lives. However, the technology that enhances our lives presents a dual realityâit offers opportunities for criminals while creating challenges for law enforcement. Fraud, particularly, has become a pervasive issue. In response, virtual asset service providers must take measures to tackle cryptocurrency-related fraud. Nevertheless, this becomes challenging if the perpetrator exists solely within the virtual world. In 1992, Neal Stephenson used the term âMetaverseâ to describe a virtual world where people interact with each other using avatars. Over time, the Metaverse has transformed into a complex concept akin to 'cyberspace'. The Metaverse is a virtual environment that uses technologies to mimic the real world. As this virtual space became intertwined with financial transactions, especially through cryptocurrencies, the Metaverse evolved into a medium for perpetrating scams. Within this context, the article addresses the challenges associated with criminal activity in the Metaverse. Considering the potential applications of AI, cryptocurrencies and Non-Fungible Tokens, three main challenges can be identified: 1) decentralisation, 2) anonymity of the user, and 3) lack of regulation. This article examines the applicability of existing legislation to regulate criminal activity in the Metaverse through doctrinal research. Using a comparative approach, it analyses the challenges of addressing virtual crimes by contrasting fraud (Fraud Act 2006) with sexual assault (Sexual Offences Act 2003), highlighting the complexity of addressing crimes involving physical contact in virtual spaces compared to financial crimes.
Marilyne Ordekian, Antonis Papasavva, Enrico Mariconti, Marie Vasek
Cryptocurrency scams have risen in popularity with the mainstreaming of cryptocurrencies. People can fall victim to them because of their lack of knowledge, particularly when they gain a sense of trust in the ecosystem via a scammer. In this paper, we analyze 143 cryptocurrency scams across 11 different types mined from 133 scam narratives collated by the government of California. Most of these are pig-butchering scams (101) where attackers interact with their victims, gain their trust, and introduce them to a (scam) cryptocurrency investment opportunity. These scams vary in lure which indicates the wide variety of scams in our sample. Scammers often portray themselves as the gender opposite of their target; our results show greater financial gains using this approach. Furthermore, most scams end up communicating via messaging apps, regardless of how the scammer initially reached out to the victim. These cross-platform movements indicate a leap of faith and trust in the scammer needed to scam the victim. While many of these scams involved a fake cryptocurrency trading platform (124), we find some (33) using well-known and legitimate cryptocurrency exchanges to lend credibility to their schemes and avoid raising suspicion. To this end, we make recommendations for legitimate cryptocurrency platforms, regulators, and the community to deter and counter the prevalence of such scams.
Joel Jordan Tobing, Ampuan Situmeang, Hari Sutra Disemadi
The development of technology and digital transformation has led to the growth of industries such as the creative business industry. One of its impacts is the emergence of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). NFTs are digital assets in the form of tokens representing ownership of a digital artwork. In Indonesia, NFTs currently lack specific legislative regulations, and there is no explicit and clear regulatory framework regarding the protection of NFTs in terms of their intellectual property aspects. Therefore, this study examines the development of NFTs in Indonesia, along with the legal position and protection of NFTs based on intellectual property law in Indonesia. In this research, the author employs a normative juridical research method with a legislative approach. Based on the research findings, it is evident that the development of NFTs, both globally and nationally, is quite significant. The public is increasingly becoming acquainted with NFTs, which have substantial prospects and are associated with many high-commercial-value works. Regarding NFTs as creative works, the regulation that accommodates the protection of intellectual property for NFTs in Indonesia is Law No. 28/2014. It is known that NFTs can take the form of images, paintings, videos, and music, which are considered parts of creations protected by copyright.
The First Amendment has long provided protections for artistsâ creative expression and is a fundamental right for all United States citizens. However, with the rise of a predominantly digital world, those protections begin to blur with the introduction of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Artistic creation often stems from an inspired source, and sometimes, that inspiration may come from registered intellectual property, specifically trademarks. Trademarks are everywhere we look, so it is not unusual for artists to be inspired by the logos, images, colors, figures, or symbols that are featured on billboards, magazine covers, or everyday items. When these trademarks are used in third-party artistic works, the situation often results in trademark owners gearing up to protect their marks and artists invoking their First Amendment rights to protect their creations. NFTs have become an extremely lucrative market, presenting a new route for artists to explore their creative ideas and an appealing business opportunity for luxury brands to enter into a unique space. Courts and practitioners must focus their attention on the rise of NFTs and trademark-related issues as litigation gradually increases. There has been a longstanding precedent formed by Rogers v. Grimaldi that gives courts some guidance on how to balance First Amendment protections and trademark rights, but with the introduction of NFTs, circuit courts are interpreting and applying the Rogers test in various ways resulting in inconsistent outcomes. This calls for another look at the Rogers test and a reconsideration of its design to balance First Amendment and trademark interests. This Article examines the nuances of First Amendment and trademark law to determine the effectiveness of the traditional Rogers test. This Article concludes that while courts have applied Rogers in unique ways, the emergence of NFTs requires a uniform approach that can only be accomplished by reconsidering Rogersâs application to the digital world. This Article encourages courts to include a more fact-intensive analysis in Rogers cases so fact finders can distinguish between expressive artistic works and ordinary consumer products while discerning the worksâ true motives.
Two years into the metaverse utopia and with the promising launches of metaverse Fashion Weeks for two years in a row, the creative industries have not yet lost their enthusiasm for experimenting with digital worlds. In practice, brand owners âmintâ non-fungible tokens,or NFTs, associated with their real-world or purely digitalassetsthat most commonly enjoy intellectual property (IP) protections, such asfashion designs. Those can be sold at dedicated NFT marketplaces, but are often interoperable, or capable of being used across a number of different digital worlds. This articleendeavours to shed light into the following key question: to what extent intellectual property rights vested into real-world creations can be transposed into the digital and by extension, whether the legal protection offered can be given its full effect in a digital unregulated space, where usersâ identities are anonymous or pseudonymous. By weighing the expected benefits and losses from a UK & EU intellectual property perspective, the authorquestions: Are NFTs and the metaverse more than a gimmick? And hence, is the metaverse a market worth investing for fashion brands? The articlefirst exploresthe metaverse for fashion, as well as designersâ andbrandsâ activity in this novel market space, followed by an in-depth discussion on the intellectual property question posed.
Copyright law safeguards the exclusive rights of authors to their intellectual creations, emphasizing reproduction, public display, and adaptation. A fundamental distinction within this realm is between the intangible creative work and its tangible representations. Owning a tangible embodiment (like a painting) does not grant rights to reproduce the intellectual work it embodies. This demarcation is critical in the dynamic landscape of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as acquiring an NFT does not automatically confer rights to the associated work. Instead, rights hinge on explicit contractual terms accompanying the NFT transaction. As the world of NFTs continues to unfold in all sorts of directions, delving deep into the intricacies of copyright law is important for artists, investors, and legal practitioners navigating the digital frontier. This chapter offers insights into the various copyright implications associated with NFTs.
Abstract Image rights enable individuals to stop the unauthorized use of their publicly identifiable attributes, typically their name, likeness, voice, or other personal indicia (in sum, their âimageâ). Unlike widely recognized intellectual property rights like copyright, patents, and trade marks, image rights have developed in a piecemeal, organic fashion, with differences in their nature and scope in various jurisdictions. Nonetheless, we conclude from an evaluation of approaches in the US, Europe, China, and the UK that image rights protection is on a growth trajectory, having undergone an overall expansion in the past twenty years, especially with the advent of the digital era. Turning to the present and future of image rights, we discuss emerging applications of image rights in the context of deepfakes, influencer marketing, digital avatars, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Additionally, online platform guidelines and actions are coalescing into de facto protection of an individualâs persona in an increasingly borderless, digital world. In such an environment, the interrelationships between a personâs autonomy, dignity, privacy, and economic aspects of reputation will require a more joined-up approach which is starting to emerge. We discuss this harmonizing trend as well as the current practical difficulties in enforcing image rights online, and suggest some solutions to these issues.
Lo scritto si propone di indagare il fenomeno dei non fungible token nel mercato dellâarÂte. Dopo una definizione dei termini tecnici rilevanti, gli Autori si soffermano sulle multiformi opinioni sorte in merito alla natura giuridica di tali strumenti di circolazione della ricchezza. La disamina consente di superare, in buona parte, lo stringente problema qualificatorio, concentrandosi sullâindividuazione della disciplina di volta in volta piĂč adeguata al caso concreto, nella consapevolezza della complessitĂ e poliedricitĂ degli strumenti medesimi.
This chapter offers a comprehensive exploration of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) within the art world, dissecting their implications on authenticity, value, and counterfeit. Drawing upon Walter Benjamin's seminal essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," the chapter juxtaposes the realm of NFTs with Benjamin's observations on how mechanical reproduction influences the aura and politicization of art. The analysis is further enriched by a case studyâYuga Labs v. Ryder Rippsâexamining the role of NFTs in political discourse and legal contexts. The chapter is organized into five key sections: 1) Revisiting the concept of 'aura' in the age of digital technology; 2) Tokenization and its impact on perceptions of authenticity; 3) Exploring the balance between value and reproducibility in NFTs; 4) Investigating how status and deception evolve in this new art ecosystem; and 5) A critical case study elucidating the intersection of NFTs and politics, thereby offering a nuanced understanding of art's politicization in the digital age. Conclusively, the chapter identifies NFTs as both a continuation and subversion of Benjamin's theories on mechanical reproduction, engaging in a complex interplay of democratization and exclusivity. The social transformation driven by NFTs not only disrupts traditional art paradigms but also introduces new layers of complexity to the intersections of community, commodity, and reality in the digital age. The rise of NFTs underscores a seismic shift in socio-political dynamics, potentially signaling a burgeoning culture war online that both democratizes and complicates the art world.
Property law in the twentieth century moved from the law of things to the law of rights in things. This was a process of fragmentation: Under Hohfeldian property, we conceive of property as a bundle of sticks, and those sticks can be moved to different holders; the right to possess can be separated from the record ownership right, for example. The downside of Hohfeldâs model is that physical objects â things â become informationally complicated. Thing-ness constrains the extravagances of Hohfeldian property: although we can split off the right to possess from the right to exclude, use, destroy, copy, manage, repair, and so on, there is a gravitational pull to tie these sticks back into a useful bundle centered on the asset, the thing. Correspondingly, there has been an âinformational turnâ to property law, looking at the ways in which property law serves to limit property forms to reduce search costs, and to identify and celebrate the informational characteristics of thing-ness. The question of thing-ness came to a head in the context of digital and smart assets with the formation of non-fungible tokens. NFTs were attempts to generate and sell âthingsâ a conceptually coherent something that can contain a loose bundle of rights. The project was an attempt to re-create thingness by an amalgam of cryptography, game theory, and intellectual property. This essay discusses thing-ness in the context of digital assets, how simulated thing-ness differs from physical thing-ness, and the problems that arise from attempts to reify digital assets.