Legal Ownership In The Metaverse
A real estate investment business paid roughly US$4 million in 2021 for a plot of land including 2,000 acres. Since the territory under question here was purely digital, this development warranted media attention. A metaverse toolkit known as "The Sandbox" was its sole known location. The company bought the equivalent of 1,200 city blocks by investing in 792 NFT on the Ethereum network.
Did it, though? Legal ownership within the metaverse is complicated, it seems.
NFTs provide genuine ownership of digital objects in the metaverse due to decentralization and interoperability, according to the dominant. But it is still a legally questionable narrative among crypto enthusiasts.
In reality, contract law rather than property law now governs who owns what in the metaverse. Here’s what experts tell you about property law, technology policy, and legal ownership in the metaverse.
Buying Stuff in the Virtual World
A blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger in which all transactions are recorded in an immutable public log that cannot be edited or removed. After making a purchase, you will become the proud owner of an NFT, that is nothing more than a special sequence of bits. The NFT is kept in a private crypto wallet that you "carry" with you everywhere you travel throughout the metaverse. Various fictitious objects are associated with each NFT.
Still, a user must agree to the platform's t&cs, terms of usage, or end user licensing agreement before joining a metaverse platform. These papers outline the obligations of users as well as the metaverse platform and are legally enforceable. To no one's surprise, practically nobody reads the service's policies. One survey indicated that just 1.7% of consumers saw the "child assignment provision" in the terms of service and raised any kind of objection. Those people unknowingly donated their newborn babies to the made-up web service.
Online Legalese
NFTs bought and digital products received are nearly never the same thing underneath the terms of service. Blockchain technology allows NFTs to function. However, the metaverse's real estate, merchandise, and characters are located on private servers that run proprietary software and have encrypted, inaccessible data storage.
This implies that the blockchain doesn't include any information on the digital assets' appearance or functionality, which are the same qualities that give these assets value. All of these elements are within the exclusive discretion of the private metaverse platforms.
Platforms may lawfully remove or distribute your products by severing the connection between the digital assets and the original NFT identifying codes, as stated in the terms of service for each platform. While you may have possession of the NFT that accompanied your digital transaction, you do not really own or have possession of the digital goods themselves. Instead, the platforms just provide access to the digital materials for whatever period of time they see fit.
Legally Enforceable
Not only do many metaverse platforms include such provisions, but they also retain the right to alter their terms and conditions at any moment with little or no real warning. Users would be wise to check the terms often to make sure they aren't doing anything that violates the most current changes, since this might lead to the loss of their "bought" assets or possibly their accounts being permanently deleted.
