Understanding Web3.0 Legal Issues - Metaverse - Issue #6
I already started using “If Metaverse was live, I wouldn’t have to go to this meeting in person.” slack statuses.What are the risks of Metaverse from a lawyer’s point of view with inspiration from JP?
This week there were three major things in the ecosystem for me: JPMorgan’s Metaverse Report, ETHDENVER, and Opensea Hacks.
ETHDENVER is huge, I wish I could fit it into my schedule, but the dates were unlucky. Efe is in Denver, it is a relief for me so that I will reach the inner gossip of the conference. Hopefully, next time I will schedule earlier to see Vitalik’s pajamas and yeti?! costume.
Opensea hacks bother me too much. I’m not a criminal lawyer at the end of the day, but I will write a newsletter about the responsibilities of platforms. If anyone wants to deep dive into criminal perspective, please drop me a DM.
Every gamer is a potential metaverse fan. I’ve spent years playing MMORPG games, Vircon started as a VR company, and I represented lots of e-sport athletes and e-sport teams so I was born for metaverse!
A small anecdote, we bought every headset in the market to test and develop our product, of course, we bought lots of games for nights! There was a game called Robo Recall, in one level you had to squat a lot to kill a boss robot. I believe I made around 400 squats a night, even though I was rowing daily, it was dreadful to sit on a chair for a couple of days.
By the way, you should definitely watch Ready Player One if you can not visualize what metaverse would look like.
The report wasn’t life-changing for me, but at least it is an “okay” explanation and it will be a starting point for most people.
In this issue, I will try to explain what a lawyer might see as a risk while evaluating what metaverse will look like.
I believe we will see lots of fraud cases. Since there is no “the metaverse”, we have potential verses; there will be lots of platforms (actually they already did) claiming being “the metaverse”. People will jump into buying lands and stuff, but they will face the truth.
The governing law will be a huge question mark. It will probably be a wild west at the beginning, but we will need problem-solving mechanisms. I start using Jur Arbitration clauses for crypto clients, we will need to create alternative dispute solving mechanisms to cover the needs of metaverse clashes.
While you can become anonymous or pseudonymous, privacy will be a huge concern. Essentials like privacy by design and privacy by default are not always the priority of on-chain coders. Every transaction is traceable but encrypted, it is a dilemma. Is your mutant ape avatar your personal data? Most likely!
Taxation is a pain in the wallet! It relies on important concepts such as “establishment”, “double taxation”, “residency” and “place of taxation”. Probably we will need to redefine some of the concepts to fit into the current need.
Property ownership. You should definitely check the class action lawsuit against Second Life. NFTs probably solve the current debate. Every right of a game used to be the property of the publisher and players hadn’t had a say. It won’t be the case in the metaverse.
Regulatory and licensing. Every finance mechanism has a de-fi version. Imagine you opened a metaverse bank. Do you need to register? What if the in-game currency becomes a viable currency, do you need to register to SEC for ICOs in return for in-game currency? Things get complicated.
Thefts, hacks, of course!
We already have a sexual harassment case! What a shame!
What is my metaverse strategy?
Think, learn, debate, try, write, ask, share, feel, imagine!
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