The Future of Intellectual Property

Intellectual property is a major global commodity more valuable than material economic inputs. For a long time, the protections for this resource were managed by individual countries, but this patchwork system is straining under the complexity of global consumption and creation, plus burgeoning volume. In the next decade or two, we should expect to see a substantial shift toward a truly global law for managing IP. We will lean on artificial intelligence to parse the vast flow of intangibles (some of which will be generated by AI). We might look forward to decentralized technologies, being piloted now, that allow attribution and distribution trackers to be deeply embedded in our creations, digital watermarks that bear creators signatures and interest. But the technical aspects of managing and tracking are not the only challenge. It s actually the balance between attribution and distribution that requires the fine tuning. Authorship must be protected longenough to make the troubles of creation worthwhile, b