元宇宙的法律难题

The Legal Conundrums of the Metaverse

在社交媒体巨头的首席执行官宣称元宇宙将成为继互联网之后的下一个大事件后,元宇宙获得了良好的发展势头。虽然目前还没有统一、共识性的元宇宙定义,但对元宇宙的共同理解是该概念结合了IoT、AR、VR、XR和3D技术。元宇宙蕴含巨大的市场资本和经济潜力,因此,讨论元宇宙的法律含义至关重要。本文是第一篇以恰当的方式阐述元宇宙的法律难题的文章。它包括对一般物权法和知识产权法的讨论,以及是否已经到了需要制定“虚拟财产法”的时候。它还讨论了隐私和数据保护、合同法、网络安全和网络攻击、货币和支付系统法、虚拟资产法规、税法、反洗钱法和了解客户规则,以及刑法等其他法律问题。元宇宙创造了一个现实世界法律可能难以适用的新空间。因此,元宇宙破坏了法律权威的“传统主张”、扰乱了尊重法治的需求。然而,将现实世界的法律适用于元宇宙仍然是可能的,但有局限性。当在元宇宙实施现实世界的法律时,这种局限性就会具体地表现出来。

The metaverse has gained momentum after the CEO of the biggest social media organization made a statement that the metaverse would be the next big thing after the Internet.Although there is no single,agreed upon definition of the metaverse,the common understanding of the metaverse is that the concept combines IoT,AR,VR,XR,and 3 D technologies.The market capital and other economic potential of the metaverse is enormous.Hence,it is of importance to discuss the legal implications of the metaverse.This article is the first to elaborate the legal conundrums of the metaverse in a proper manner.It includes discussion of general and property law and intellectual property law,and whether the time has come to have“a virtual property law”.It also discusses some other legal issues such as privacy and data protection,contract law,cybersecurity and cyberattacks,monetary and payment systems laws,and regulation of virtual assets,tax law,anti-money laundering laws and KYC,and criminal law.The metaverse creates a space where the law of the real world may be difficult to apply.Therefore,the metaverse disrupts the“traditional claims”from the legal authority and the demand for respect for the rule of law just because it is the law.However,applying this subset of the real-world laws to the metaverse turns out to be possible,but with limitations.Such limitations arise specifically when it comes to the operation of the law.