Measuring Crime In Metaverses: A Challenge

Atul Chandra, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lucknow

ABSTRACT

Virtual interactions have become an increasingly significant element of life for consumers and organisations over the last decade. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this tendency has escalated, with consumers and companies increasingly turning to video conferencing and other types of virtual engagement. The "metaverse" has recently sparked interest in virtual interactions, with major firms, like Facebook, launching metaverse efforts. Indeed, Facebook has gone so far as to include the phrase into its new name, Meta, after projecting the metaverse as the next big thing in technology. The "metaverse" appears to be the current IT term. The metaverse can be understood in the context of general cyberspace. But the metaverse, offers us to immerse a form of ourselves as avatars in its environment, generally through augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR), which people can access today and will be able to do more with technology like virtual reality goggles. While it all appears to be extremely fascinating, it is compelled to inquire: who or what rules the metaverse? In my opinion, there are several crucial areas that are now legally ambiguous. This paper contains a theoretical description of a digital information pattern. It addresses the fundamental legal characteristics of metaverse creation, such as the necessity, complexity, and data privacy concerns. It concludes with a discussion of the metaverse's use, issues, and future prospects in the cyber era. This article looks at behaviours that would be deemed unlawful in the real world but are done in virtual worlds. It looks at how virtual worlds have evolved, as well as research that suggests that more and more of our lives will be moved into this realm. The article then looks at how virtual conduct that causes harm in the real world differs from virtual conduct that only causes harm in the virtual world.

Keywords: Metaverse, Laws in the metaverse, NFTs, Virtual World, Meta, Intellectual Property