Creation and competition in the metaverse

The metaverse is a futuristic concept. It was first articulated in science fiction but has been pursued by corporations ever since. Due to technical limitations, the metaverse still lies in the future. Nevertheless, it is worthy of reflection today, also by legal scholars. The reason is that two arguably essential aspects of the metaverse, namely, interconnection between virtual worlds and a thriving creator economy, may never be achieved without legal intervention. In other words, whether the metaverse ever comes into existence depends not only on users and developers but also – even if more modestly – on lawyers. This paper shows how it starts by describing the metaverse, from its literary history to contemporary manifestations (Section 1), and then tackles two key issues, interoperability and mobile distribution, from a competition law and policy perspective (Section 2).