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This has weighed on me for years and I’d really love some forward-thinking lawyers to weigh in on the future of such protections. I can’t conceive of how the digital economy, powered by the internet (where everything is copied and shared on purpose), can conceivably sustain legal protections requiring enforcement by government.

Everything online is immediately accessible globally: music, photos, video, written content, social media posts, films and television shows – when a digital version is created, it is copied and available in any country in the world.

Society has attempted to put technology in place to protect works – such as an IP address identifying the country of a consumer (and blocking access to content to that consumer).  But technology also evolves to find workarounds, technology accelerates making it futile to keep ahead of it, and technology is easily overcome with something as simple as a screenshot.

Regardless, the government and law enforcement of different countries need not care at all about the laws yours. While technologies can try to maintain ownership or the originality of works, what might be done about the fact that hundreds of countries have their own laws?  That BILLIONS of people hold no regard for yours?

Is paying for such protections futile?  Justify it.  How will companies or creators protect themselves from liabilities in 194 other countries?  How can any smaller company or creator conceivably meet the laws or defend ownership of IP in hundreds of places??

Jonathan Buchner Answered question February 8, 2023