If the people behind a DAO elect to commit some illegal act, who's responsible?
The DAO itself is a dumb object, incapable of moral or ethical reasoning, while the people behind it are not.
However, the people behind the DAO are effectively anonymized, are they not? The entity which commits the act is culpable, but the law usually goes after accomplices or enablers as well.
Unless I'm thinking about this all wrongly, this opens up a really messy can of worms and we now live in a world where you have to watch your back at every turn.
Which isn't to say it wasn't already like that, but it's been turned up to eleven now.
As an example:
DAO[A] is created by individuals for the purpose of doxxing one of the founders of slock.it. DAO[B] answer the call and gather the information providing it to DAO[A] who contracts with DAO[C1] to publish the information on a server paid for by DAO[C2], who then does so.
The founder and/or his family (all the founders of slock.it are male, apparently) are now potentially exposed to harm.
Is this a likely scenario? Do we now have to have a Rule 35 that says if there's a thing that can be done, a DAO will exist for it?
when you're a shareholder of a company which commits an illegal act, you're not responsible (limited liability or something?) - why would it be any different with DAO?
First: if you vote to do something illegal as a shareholder, then you can be held responsible. Even in a limited liability corporation. [0]
Second: it's not a company: it's a partnership, by my interpretation. By law (in all countries I know of) partnerships by default do not have limited liability. If you want limited liability, you're going to need to set up a proper corporation/LLP, file the proper paperwork, adhere to various laws, keep books, etc. Otherwise, in the US you are probably jointly and severally liable.[1]
The defense "The DAO did it" wouldn't work, since people are voluntary members of the DAO, and presumably voted/stayed in when it got to the point of criminal acts.
The legal system is not a machine you can bypass with magical internet code. (As opposed to a legal system as a Smart Contract running on Ethereum, perhaps.)
Becuase you get limited liability by being incorporated as a corporation that is legally given limited liability. And the DAO is (intentionally?) not such.
I rarely schizo (at least that's what the voices tell me).
The problem is one of anonymity and tracing ownership. There's not much anonymity in a traditional corporation. Every officer is on file somewhere and every transaction can eventually be traced back to it's originator.
Bringing bitcoin into the equation is definitely a problem for parts of that, as it can be purchased with cash, and then used to purchase Ethereum.
The DAO itself is a dumb object, incapable of moral or ethical reasoning, while the people behind it are not.
However, the people behind the DAO are effectively anonymized, are they not? The entity which commits the act is culpable, but the law usually goes after accomplices or enablers as well.
Unless I'm thinking about this all wrongly, this opens up a really messy can of worms and we now live in a world where you have to watch your back at every turn.
Which isn't to say it wasn't already like that, but it's been turned up to eleven now.
As an example:
DAO[A] is created by individuals for the purpose of doxxing one of the founders of slock.it. DAO[B] answer the call and gather the information providing it to DAO[A] who contracts with DAO[C1] to publish the information on a server paid for by DAO[C2], who then does so.
The founder and/or his family (all the founders of slock.it are male, apparently) are now potentially exposed to harm.
Is this a likely scenario? Do we now have to have a Rule 35 that says if there's a thing that can be done, a DAO will exist for it?