Presentation
At the request of IXAD – the Northwest Regional School of Lawyers – Pierre-Xavier Chomiac de Sas was pleased to offer a professional training course on the metaverse and virtual reality to lawyers from the Hauts-de-France and Upper Normandy Bars.
This presentation is part of a series of training courses dedicated to new technologies and digital law, which will subsequently include “Influencer Law” and then “Video Game and Esports Law,” scheduled for the end of 2023. Contact us for more information about our courses and training dates.
PCS Avocat is a law firm specializing in digital law and has been providing training for over ten years in universities, law schools, and bar schools throughout France on all topics related to digital law: business law, internet and ICT, esports and video games, GDPR and personal data, intellectual property, and cybersecurity.
Metaverse and Virtual Reality: Definitions and Realities
Largely promoted by Meta’s (formerly Facebook) marketing campaign in 2020, the concept of the metaverse is defined as “a category of persistent and synchronous online platform offering a variety of online services and providing intermediation services within virtual worlds, possessing their own economy and accessible to a large number of users simultaneously and immersively, notably through avatar representation.”
Behind this definition lie technical, economic, and legal realities related to technological tools, software, and products/services made available to users, whether individuals, consumers, or professionals.
It can take particularly varied forms, including social networking spaces such as Facebook’s Meta project, online advertising spaces, virtual or augmented reality sales platforms, cultural, sporting, or social experiences (concerts within video games, football competitions viewed in mixed reality), and diverse online services in adapted environments (sandboxes) using traditional or Web 3 technologies.
Legal scholars have also increasingly focused on this issue, publishing legal analyses from various perspectives across different sectors and areas of law. In October 2022, an exploratory report was submitted to Rima Abdul Malak, Minister of Culture, and Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister Delegate for Digital Transition and Telecommunications, analyzing metaverses and proposing ten levers for action to leverage this technological innovation. See the full report.
Legal professionals have also begun experimenting with virtual reality technologies in the areas of justice and trials, using virtual reality within a metaverse. This is notably the case with the initiative of the Paris Bar Association, in collaboration with the Paris Court of Justice, which staged the mock trial of Elin Mask on June 6th within the courthouse.
Metaverse & Virtual Reality: Legal Issues
Legally, this concept encompasses a multitude of questions on subjects as diverse as applicable statutory/contractual law, access control and content moderation, the regulation and protection of intellectual property rights for supporting software and all components constituting the metaverse, the processing of personal data, images and elements related to privacy, the management of commercial and contractual relationships within the metaverse, and more.
The legal challenges are diverse and multifaceted, impacting all areas of law: intellectual property, cybersecurity and criminal law, labor law and tax law, etc. While digital law offers some potential solutions, only a comprehensive framework based on a form of co-regulation of the sector can provide overall legal stability.
Find other training courses, presentations, and publications from the firm related to metaverses and virtual reality.
