❌ Dispute Module

The Dispute Module creates a way for users to raise and resolve disputes through arbitration.

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Dispute Terminology

The main components of the arbitration system are:

• Arbitration Policies: the arbitration policy refers to the set rules/process/entities that combined will decide on a dispute. Currently the only supported arbitration policy is the UMA Arbitration Policy.
• Arbitration Penalty: what happens to an IP Asset after it has been “tagged”. An IPA is not deemed “tagged” unless the dispute is decided to be correct. Once tagged, an IPA will not be able to:
  • mint licenses
  • link to any parents
  • claim royalties
  • and all of its existing licenses become unusable

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Dispute Tags

Tags refer to the “labels” that can be applied to IP Assets in the protocol when raising a dispute. Tags must be whitelisted by protocol governance to be used in a dispute. The initial set of tags (and their bytes32 for interacting with the Dispute Module on-chain) are:

• IMPROPER_REGISTRATION: 0x494d50524f5045525f524547495354524154494f4e0000000000000000000000
• IMPROPER_USAGE: 0x494d50524f5045525f5553414745000000000000000000000000000000000000
• IMPROPER_PAYMENT: 0x494d50524f5045525f5041594d454e5400000000000000000000000000000000
• CONTENT_STANDARDS_VIOLATION: 0x434f4e54454e545f5354414e44415244535f56494f4c4154494f4e0000000000
• IN_DISPUTE: 0x494e5f4449535055544500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

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Dispute Process Flow

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Raise Dispute

The raiseDispute function is permissionless and allows any address to raise a dispute against any IP Asset registered on the protocol. The dispute initiator has to:

1. Select which “tag” it is raising a dispute on which will be applied to the IP Asset if the arbitration decision is positive. This means an IP Asset is officially “tagged” only when the proposed tag is confirmed as correct (“positive decision” in the diagram above).
2. Submit the dispute evidence for evaluation
3. Other conditions custom to each arbitration policy - such as payment rules, etc.

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Set Dispute Judgement

The setDisputeJudgement can only be called by whitelisted addresses and allows the caller to set the dispute judgment. Can only be called once as dispute decisions are immutable. If 3rd parties want to offer the possibility for recourse they can do so on their end and relay the final judgment.

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Tag Derivative If Parent Infringed

If the setDisputeJudgement has tagged an IP as infringing then any address can call tagIfRelatedIpInfringed to apply the same tag as the parent to the derivatives all the way down the derivative chain or if the IP is a group then the group member tag can be applied to any group IP which it is a member of.

The derivatives are then tagged directly without any need for judgment given that it is considered that if a parent IP license has been infringed then all derivatives that come from that license are also implicitly in an infringement situation.

Example: IPA 7 is first tagged (“PLAGIARISM”) as infringing via setDisputeJudgement after having gone through a dispute process. Only after that can IPAs 3, 1, and 0 can be tagged via tagIfRelatedIpInfringed by any address without needing to go through a new dispute process.

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Resolve Dispute

Resolving a dispute removes the tag from the IP Asset. Since there are two ways in which a tag can be applied, there are two ways for it to be resolved:

1. Tag was applied via thesetDisputeJudgement function

In a case where a dispute judgment was positive, then a tag was applied. After the tag has been applied to an IP Asset, the dispute initiator can, if he/she believes the matter to be resolved and the tag to no longer apply, choose to remove it by calling resolveDispute. For example, if one party owed money to the dispute initiator and paid the full amount after the dispute judgment then the tag could be cleared and the IP Asset would have a clean slate again.

If the dispute initiator chooses to not resolve, then the tag that was defined in setDisputeJudgement remains in force.

2. Tag was applied via thetagIfRelatedIpInfringed function

If an IP has been previously tagged as infringing via tagIfRelatedIpInfringed, such tag can be removed via resolveDispute in a permissionless way as long as the parent is no longer considered an infringing IP Asset.

This mechanism of permissionless resolving disputes exists to make it easier to propagate down the derivative chain and remove infringement tags from derivative IPs when the parent has resolved its original dispute and is no longer considered as being in an infringing situation, and therefore neither are its derivatives.

If no address chooses to resolve, then the tag that was applied from the parent to the derivative remains in force.

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Cancel Dispute

In a case where a dispute was raised but the matter has been resolved before the dispute judgment, the dispute initiator can cancel the dispute. However, depending on the conditions of each arbitration policy, there may be non-refundable fees that are not recouped on cancellation.