Risks of Adoption

Abstract

Disruptive technologies create losers as well as winners. We cannot anticipate all possible consequences, but we should at least try to consider the risks, as well as the benefits, to the creative economy (and beyond) in adopting blockchain technology. In political terms, both a complete lack of appropriate regulation, on the one hand, and over-regulation, on the other, represent risks. In economic terms, the removal of trusted third parties may not be as desirable as tech-utopians assume. In terms of social risks, we should remember that decentralised technologies do not necessarily decentralise power; the asymmetries of wealth and power evident in our own society may simply be replicated, or even accentuated, on a blockhain. As regards technological risks, blockchains could facilitate the illegal storage of digital works in a way that, because it is distributed rather than centralised, makes the content very difficult to remove. This is also a legal risk, since ‘notice and takedown’ procedures would be ineffective in such a scenario. Arguably, there is a fundamental antipathy between blockchain technology and the very notion of copyright. Finally, there are significant environmental risks presented by the energy-intensive nature of mining.