Murder in Metaverse, crime or not ?
In the metaverse, crime isn’t a life-sentence felony, but some law experts believe it could be a crime. The Sun spoke to two lawyers, who have written about crime in the metaverse, and a former Manhattan prosecutor turned law professor about violence in the virtual world and if they can be prosecuted.
Two of the three experts said violent crimes like murder, rape, or assault in the metaverse can arguably be speech-related charges like menacing, harassment or stalking.
It boils down to the wording of the laws Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.
The law is not meant to protect avatars or software codes that populate the metaverse. Rather, it should be viewed more as speech or expression which is less of an act against a person. This way, we can analyze whether that speech or expression is permissible, protected, or not.
This argument feeds into the larger societal First Amendment debate about what speech is protected and what isn’t. All the trolling, virtual bullying, threats and bad behavior online happens all the time and will likely also happen in the metaverse.
But
It would be difficult to prosecute a typically-anonymous user and prove the user committed the act, according to Patrick Roberts, of the Roberts Law Group.
Consequences will likely be some sort of virtual punishment, such as a user’s avatar being deactivated or restricted, he said.
“And the person who used the avatar for virtual violence might be restricted or prevented from access for a time, maybe,” the North Carolina lawyer said.
“This is all conjecture and has free speech implications.
Online gaming means thousands (millions) of avatars are injured or killed daily. In fact, such acts are either “part of the game” or at least allowed by the game. Unfortunately, very few digital harassment crimes or threats on the internet are prosecuted.
“Every case is individualized, but a lot of threats get made and criminal enforcement isn’t frequent,” he said. I can’t imagine threats in the metaverse getting a lot of traction with law enforcement.
You should not open this link to . Metaverse
“Could the law give greater protection to avatars because they’re like our personal persona? Could the law extend protection? I think potentially it could,” Pryor said.
This story originally appeared on The Sun and has been reproduced here with permission.
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