Property in the digital world

The gravest challenge for traditional, analogue-world notions about property in the digital world comes from the breakdown of the natural, analogue-world link between control and location. As has been seen (in §17.00.10 and §17.00.11), in the digital world, contrary to what has been known to humanity since its beginning, a Thing or a Being never leaves the territory of the state where it was created: it can process information, or information can be processed on it, from an analogue-world distance, from (or in, as the case may be) the (digital) territory of other states. This affects (in fact, reduces) the control of states within their own territories and thus the property rights of their citizens—in essence, their citizens have become users (instead of owners). Of course, from the point of view of the owners, their property is strengthened, because the digital world, artificial as it is, allows for more control than the analogue (see also §24.00.07).

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