Adidas, Nike, Atari, Snoop Dogg, Post Malone, The Weeknd, all of the aforesaid are public individuals and companies who have in common to be currently involved in the Metaverse space. Towards the end of November, Adidas has twitted that they would partner with Coinbase and purchased a land lot on one of the most famous existing metaverses, i.e. the Sandbox. Earlier in December, Adidas launched a video on their official launch on the metaverse, as well as having bought one of the well-known Bored Apes Yacht Club, dressed with a yellow Adidas tracksuit. Similarly, Adidas' competitor Nike has purchased a dedicated space on Roblox calling it Nikeland. The Weeknd and Post Malone have inserted in their music video of their featuring "One Right Now" the purchase of a Bored Ape via Moonpay and The Weeknd has listed his collection on Opensea. Lastly, Snoop Dogg has entered the Metaverse with a mansion on the Sandbox whereby he will offer his fans the possibility to hang out, listen to his avatar's live performances, buy his avatars, his cars and merchandise. Snoop Dogg is currently letting an early access ticket to the Snoopverse of over 2 thousand USD, limited to 5000 tickets. However, prior to enter into this space, let's take step back and dive into the metaverse.

Legally, there is still no definition of the Metaverse, so what this article will attempt to do will be to make a recollection of ideas and definitions currently existing on dictionaries and look at the evolution of the metaverse as of now, and also with a look at the near (and not-so-near) future. All of the aforesaid will be obviously approached using the perspective of a legal professional.

The metaverse is "a proposed version of the internet that incorporates three-dimensional virtual environments" (def. Collins Dictionary) or, more easily, "an alternate digital reality where people socialize, work, play, and transact" (Republic Realm's Definition). These definitions, among the many drafted in the recent months, particularly after Mark Zuckerberg's press release on the change of the Company name into "Meta", are all true, as there is not a univocal or sole metaverse. The metaverse was not born in 2021, in fact, the first use of the word "metaverse" was made in Snow Crash, a novel written by Neal Stephenson in 1992. Furthermore, the metaverse already existed in several applications developed in the past, among others SimCity®, Second Life®, only to mention the most advanced ones back in the 1990s-and 2000s. However let's not forget that a metaverse can also be whichever videogame - multiplayer or single player - that allows some sort of interaction with the virtual space. Can we safely say that when users used to play GTA®, Need for Speed® or FIFA® they were already experiencing and immersed in a metaverse? I would certainly argue that indeed this is the case. Clearly, now we entered a more mature technological phase, which allows deeper levels of interaction in the metaverse.

Let's start with virtual meetings: hasn't Zoom clearly created a metaverse whereby co-workers, friends or family can interact In the digital space? Isn't peer-to-peer payment a form of transacting in an alternate digital reality? So yes, we already experienced in some forms the metaverse in the past, but what we are currently able to perceive is just a portion or one version of the same. Shokoh H. Yaghoubi and Rahul Kapoor back on 3rd November in their article on Mondaq were stating that "[.] essentially, the metaverse will be an ultimate culmination of virtual reality and augmented reality". The colleagues rightly and thoroughly explored briefly the legal implications of creating a metaverse, from a US perspective. From an EU perspective, there is not much difference, however, from an Intellectual Property standpoint we must also highlight that the AI-generated work is a wide debate and the copyright will be hardly associated to the author of the AI software, as it occurred in the hypothesis pointed out by the colleagues.

However, in cases like the Sandbox metaverse, whereby creators are at the very centre of the game, as they are free to create and be rewarded for their creation, then the copyright cases will be clearly and unequivocally associated to the wallet that offered its work, game or whichever feature put available to the players and metaverse users. However, as we know the blockchain allows for anybody to protect (at least partially) their identity, so how are infringers supposed to be stopped? How can a decentralized organization act in a centralized manner in order to maintain the legality in a community? Doesn't that bring us back to centralization? Food for thought.

So, as per the Sandbox, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels and similar currently existing metaverses, these are currently experiencing a high surge of onboarding users, allowing them, in most cases, to retain ownership on their works throughout the whole duration of the usage of the same. Let's try to depict an example. A programmer onboards on the Sandbox and starts programming. After a while on the platform, he decides to start making virtual villas and codes a big Yacht that he wants to sell. He now has two options: either to sell it as a unique NFT, and sell it for a high price (as it occurred in reality with the Megaflower Yacht worth 650.000 USD) or list it as an object that the user can mint multiple times and use on the Sandbox. The NFT allows the creator to be automatically rewarded by receiving the requested amount on his wallet in the currency of the game (in this case, SAND) and the user who fancied the item can now have a unique digital item purchased only for himself. This clearly allows creators to freely let their imagination run and see an automatic reward upon purchase from the interested gamer/user, as well as being able to have an automatic proof of ownership on their works, which eliminates the lack of evidence, which several artists have experienced in the past. In this sense, finally the gamer/user can have a very personal item to showcase and use in a metaverse, instead of a "skin", identical to all the others.

So what are the differences between a SimCity game and a Sandbox? Well, that's easy, the fact that the latter was built on blockchain and that they use NFTs to sell the individual works of the creators inside the game.

Lastly, an important mention goes to the traditional enforcement of rights in this space. Just as it happened with the early days of the internet, it occurs today with the NFT space and the metaverse. One of the latest developments relates to the MetaBirkins Cease and Desist Letter sent by Hermès to artist Mason Rothschild, who has largely benefitted from the sale of such virtual items on Rarible. As a matter of fact, such goods were sold at floor prices of 40,000USD and in front of such operations and transactions a company cannot simply sit and watch, particularly when other big names in the fashion sector are entering the NFT space with their works. Without the enforcement effort, there existed the possibility that in the future users associated such NFTs with Hermès' commercial origin, which was not in the cards for the French company. 

In conclusion, the IP hurdles remain unchanged, with positive and negative aspects to take into consideration. Namely, certainly a positive novelty is that artists can have an immediate proof of ownership on their works, whereas, on the less bright side, scammers gain further anonymity on blockchain ecosystems, thus harder to reach out to, which complicates the practitioners' efforts to enforce the clients' rights. However, who closes his/her eyes to the NFT space and metaverse will be left behind, so stay up to date and enjoy the ride! 

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.