ABSTRACT
The sharing economy has introduced a multitude of challenges to property law, or at least so it seems. A wide range of doctrines and safeguards, including eminent domain, taxation, zoning and anti-discrimination principles provide special (if less than comprehensive) protection for property that is intended for long-term personal use, compared to the legal standards that apply to commercial property. However, the rapid growth of platforms for peer-to-peer short-term transactions challenges the foundational legal distinction between personal property and commercial property. This in turn has sparked a heated debate on the applicability of existing laws to this new economic and social phenomenon. On one side are those who claim that the sharing economy is so ground-breaking, so unlike anything else that has come before it, that the existing legal framework simply does not apply. On the other side of the argument are those who view the sharing economy as no more than new developments that are extensions of previously existing practice, and therefore should be subject to the same regulatory principles as its pre-digital-age counterparts such as leases and short-term licenses.
Holzman-Gazit, Yifat, Airbnb and the Challenges to ‘Intimate Property’: Empirical Insights (December 19, 2021), Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies, volume 23, no 1 (2021), pp 253-265. DOI: 10.1093/jrls/jlaa013.
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