More importantly, Ethereum and some of the other "Bitcoin 2.0" protocols are tackling the technology behind distributed consensus and trust (using crypto blockchains for something other than payment), but there's the additional question of how do you make your cute technology interface with the real world's legal systems (if not for you, then for all the organizations your DAO will interact with).
The interesting thing about these guys is they're a team of both developers and lawyers... part of this project is the packaging of the technology on top of Ethereum, but part of it is figuring out the legal frameworks needed to grant legal authority to a distributed crypto consensus network.
I'm no lawyer, but I think it's compatible with contract law...
If you wanted to create an organization represented by a DAO in this system, then you would still need to register a legal entity with your government to represent your organization (for tax and regulatory reasons). But that organization could have exactly one bylaw saying, essentially, "this organization shall operate according to the DAO uniquely identified as ABCXYZ123". Then you do all further work in the DAO.
If you wanted to create a contract of some kind, you wouldn't need to do even that. A "contract" in law is fairly general: it's an agreement, entered into voluntarily, between multiple partners for their mutual benefit. It's often done on paper, but not necessarily: they can be created orally, or via email. There's no reason I know of that a DAO couldn't create a contract, as long as you could show to a court that it fits all the normal criteria for a valid contract.
The main complication in all this is that it's unusual and, at least at first, judges wouldn't know how it works and would want proof that it creates a legal contract.
Great points. Eris is agnostic as to what happens outside of the blockchain system. We have purposefully built it so that it could be as centralized and linked to a legally incorporated entity as users like or it could be as decentralized and independent as users like. As to how contracts work, they are simply code. What we would recommend is that if people are interested in having smart contracts that for the time being they would have a coded contract married to (and integrated with) a "normal" contract which conversely integrates the coded contract. Doing such would make it relatively straightforward (we think) for a judge to understand what was happening.
> I'm no lawyer, but I think it's compatible with contract law...
There was a neat talk from the silicon valley ethereum meetup a few months ago where a lawyer dives into the technical definition of a legal 'contract' and what parts of that Ethereum code does and does not satisfy:
(One of the key insights there is although Ethereum uses the term 'contract' to describe its autonomous code, Ethereum contracts do not by themselves satisfy the criteria for a legal contract in common jurisdictions... 'autonomous agent' would be a better term for Ethereum to use)
The interesting thing about these guys is they're a team of both developers and lawyers... part of this project is the packaging of the technology on top of Ethereum, but part of it is figuring out the legal frameworks needed to grant legal authority to a distributed crypto consensus network.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIVjAo4vres&feature=youtu.be is a good 10 min background interview with Preston Byrne, one of the members.