Decentralized Governance in the Metaverse: Leveraging Web3 for Community-led Decision Making

THE GOVERNANCE OF THE METAVERSE

Although the metaverse does not yet exist, it does seem that certain companies (Alphabet, Samsung, Tencent and Meta) are carrying out initiatives to achieve the precise technology. No one doubts the computing complexity involved, especially as users increase. However, there are certain obstacles linked to payments and legal barriers related to property rights. In other words, the metaverse requires interoperability of the different platforms , new protocols, rationalization of standards, and so on. Hence, the question: how will it be governed?

Today, the complexity of social media platforms and virtual worlds moves into private spaces. They are governed by the discretion and arbitrariness of their developers and with a minimum level of user participation .

Virtual reality

All of this causes widespread concern about the use of power that these platforms and systems can cause. Above all, when said power is cumulative and is concentrated in a few companies. For this reason, there is talk of the need to develop autonomous organizations that function as digital cooperatives that allow individuals/users to be endowed with certain rights and allow financial participation that guarantees the ability to propose and determine rules, norms, and rights. That is, define how to proceed to carry out the behavior guides with regard to responsibility, defense mechanisms, or transferability codes, to give three examples.

A second complexity focuses on how to deal with the question of whether the technology generated by Artificial Intelligence can be considered as a specific legal segment. That is, how to register said technology as a patent. Some experts warn that if companies cannot benefit from a patent, they will choose to reduce their investments or keep their inventions secret. The debate is very open and, without a doubt, it will generate controversy . Although everyone, almost without exception, recommends riding the technological wave.

Material reality is being transferred to various cyber universes that coexist virtually. The future of production, commerce and culture is being forged in these spaces. However the issue is resolved, the truth is that the world in which future generations live and act will depend on its outcome.

Much has been said in relation to the metaverse as a bundle of technologies (virtual reality, augmented reality, three-dimensional games, etc.) that interconnects applications, objects and infrastructure and provides three-dimensional (and even sensory) experiences to become what some call Internet 3.0. Web 3 future of the internet In parallel, much has also been commenting on the legal implications of this new technological paradigm.

All in all, and since Facebook’s name was changed to Meta last fall, as a symbol of this company’s commitment to the metaverse, perhaps no other event is as relevant as the one that took place on December 21. June. On that date, the creation of the Metaverse Standards Forum (MSF) was announced, as a cooperation entity between companies and organizations for the development of logical standards, in order to generate interoperability parameters that allow the creation of an open metaverse (as well as a coherent terminology for this new environment).

The MSF groups among its main founders companies such as Microsoft, Meta itself, Adobe, Alibaba, Epic Games, Huawei, Ikea, Nvidia, Qualcomm or Sony; and standards entities of such relevance as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) of the creator of the World Wide Web (Tim Berners-Lee). The importance of this initiative lies in the fact that today the metaverse is actually many metaverses, a completely unconnected environment, where the avatars of its users are blocked on one platform or another without in any way being able to speak of a metaverse. unified, in that it is open and interoperable.

While this new entity –and others that may be created, naturally– are doing their work of unification, and despite the multiple expectations that are being generated, there is really little new to be said from a legal point of view. At least, that has not been said since the irruption of digital Law almost 30 years ago.

After all, as also happened decades ago with the deployment of the Internet, it seems desirable to choose as a priority to apply, even, if necessary, in an analogical way, the legal norms that could be appropriate for that specific case.

The final message, especially for those companies that wish to already be present in this new environment, is therefore clear: almost 30 years of resolving legal problems on the Internet and the digital environment allow us to deal with reasonable confidence as many as may arise in the metaverse; More specifically, and at least until this environment constitutes a truly unified environment, current legal instruments make it possible to deal with such problems with similar confidence. In other words: there was a time when the internet was the Far West; not even today the metaverse is.

A Message from NFTdailydose

Thank you for being an essential part of our vibrant crypto community!

Before you go:

• 👏 Clap for the story and follow the author 👉
• 📰 View more content in the NFTdailydose