Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Keenan joins the Live show to discuss legal issues and the regulatory outlook for the metaverse.

Video Transcript

BRIAN CHEUNG: OK, let's say hypothetically, you did something bad in the Metaverse. I'm just asking for a friend. Let's say you did something maybe that wouldn't be considered a good thing to do in the real verse. What's your recourse? Is there any consequence? Is there a court? Is there a law enforcement agency in Decentraland or in any other Metaverse?

Let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Alexis Keenan, who's been looking into that question, because, obviously, a lot of gray area around this new space here. Is it like Maritime law, Alexis, or are there just no rules out there right now? Give us a breakdown.

ALEXIS KEENAN: Yeah, Brian, I don't even think it reaches the level of Maritime law right now. And what you point out is exactly the type of concerns that were expressed last week in a panel talk that was hosted by Stanford University. And the concern there is that lawmakers have allegedly failed a duty to develop laws and regulations for the Metaverse. Specifically, they say absent oversight, the Metaverse is really destined to become this very scary place.

Now, they focused on the need for laws to encourage developers in the very first place to create a safe Metaverse. And they were specifically talking about individuals and the type of injuries that have already been sustained online so that they're not repeated. They cited privacy violations that have happened in the past, data collection abuses, as well as the psychological damage to teenage girls who use Instagram that was part of that Wall Street Journal exposé and part of a whistleblower's concerns that were expressed that backed that reporting.

Now, a lot of these unsettled legal issues, though, that are facing the Metaverse, as we would expect, they involve business disputes. We're thinking of things like intellectual property, such as who owns patents and copyrights for underlying software, and also, who owns copyrights and trademarks for certain content that appears in the Metaverse. Now, the focus, though, of this talk was more on personal legal issues that could arise, like the one you were talking about.

Think of personal injuries where a user is going after a Metaverse company for, for example, how they handle data privacy, how they handle something like a trip and fall based on using the technology. That's already been happening, things like nausea from using the software and the hardware together.

Also emotional distress could-- emotional distress, rather, could be a problem. You can also think about users going after other users in the Metaverse. Imagine a virtual or physical-- a virtual physical or a verbal assault, for example. Also third party use of, let's say, your avatar and taking your personal information and using it online.

So, the bottom line here is, there's a lot of split thinking among the panelists and in this community. On one hand, you have experts saying that the law should have stepped in 10 years ago to try to thwart some of these problems, and others say that, look, no amount of regulation is ever going to catch up to the rapid change in technology.

So part of this talk, giving a keynote here was Meta's chief legal officer, Jennifer Newstead. She had talked about the idea that no single company, even Meta, she says, will or can create own or run the Metaverse, but that has yet to be seen as this world really develops so, so rapidly, but lawyers trying to get their arms around how to govern this new place.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Yeah, well, at least, they're starting to think about it in case something were to happen to my bcheung, the avatar, in Decentraland. Yahoo Finance's Alexis Keenan, thanks so much.

ALEXIS KEENAN: Yeah, watch out.

BRIAN CHEUNG: We'll be back with more on Yahoo Finance. Stay with us.