Also currently developed mechanisms for protecting intellectual property rely more on ethics and technology than on internationally accepted laws. How should we handle digital derivative works and digital fair use? How do we protect digital information? Probably encryption will be the technical basis for most intellectual property protection. As Nicholas Negroponte has put it:
The information age is in a bit of a mess when it comes to understanding who may access what, when, how, and under the control of whom [Neg95].