# Instance Count Governance **Domain:** Deep Time / Population / Resource Governance **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Entry **Maturity:** Developed **Evidence / Concept Status:** Future constitutional concept ## Definition **Instance Count Governance** is the legal regulation of how many independently running copies, forks, or instantiations of a computational subject may exist and which of them receive standing or service entitlements. ## Why It Matters for Deep Time Continuity Copyability can turn one recognition decision into potentially unbounded resource obligations. ## Existing Architecture / Evidence Licensing, corporate subsidiaries, software copies, reproductive law, and resource quotas provide only partial analogues. ## Deep-Time Continuity Analysis Legitimate rules would need to distinguish capacity planning from arbitrary suppression of persons. ## Evidentiary Boundary No current instance-count law exists for digital persons. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/Forking as Reproduction|Forking as Reproduction]] · [[wiki/Continuity Admission Control|Continuity Admission Control]] · [[wiki/Thermodynamic Incidence of Rights|Thermodynamic Incidence of Rights]] · [[wiki/Digital Mind Demography|Digital Mind Demography]] <!-- BEGIN DEEP TIME CONTINUITY ROUTING --> ## Canonical Branch [[wiki/Deep Time Continuity|Deep Time Continuity]] <!-- END DEEP TIME CONTINUITY ROUTING -->