Law’s place in the metaverse

Over the last few years, the question of how we govern ourselves on new online platforms has become an urgent one for lawyers and lawmakers. On Modern Law, it's a topic we've already discussed, and now we revisit it – only this time it's the metaverse that has captured our attention. 

What is the metaverse? Well, it depends on who you ask. 

You could describe it as a shared environment that people access via the internet using virtual or augmented reality technology. For our purposes, it's probably better to think of it as an evolving communications tool that is opening up a strange new economy — one that mixes elements from both digital and analog worlds, where buyers and sellers can trade goods and services.

It goes without saying that where there's a market for goods and services, there are contracts, and laws and regulations, and codes of conduct. All of which sounds perfectly normal. But the metaverse is also a different beast than our analog world. In theory, it's more decentralized, and so the rules around accountability and responsibility could turn out to be quite different. Thankfully, to help us understand some of the legal implications that we should be thinking about as we build an immersive digital economy, I recently had Toufic Adlouni on the show to explain why he sees law on a "collision course" with this new world. Adlouni is the co-founder and managing director of Renno & Co, a Montréal-based law firm focusing on emerging technology law. For the most part, he advises start-up companies in the tech sector. He and Renno's other co-founder, David Oram, recently opened Canada's first metaverse law office.

I hope you enjoy the conversation. You can listen to the episode right away in the embedded audio player. Or you can hear this podcast and others on our main CBA channel on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, and Stitcher.