Of course, since there are currently no laws and regulations for the Metaverse that provide clear regulations and guidelines for the business model of "Metaverse + Cultural Tourism", major platforms currently use cultural tourism NFT, digital collections, cultural and creative products as the pioneers. Gradually build a metaverse that can undertake an immersive cultural tourism experience.

Today, Sister Sa's team will study the legal compliance issues related to Metaverse's immersive cultural tourism from the perspective of legal compliance , and share it with partners.

1. What is the cultural and tourism metaverse?

As the next-generation Internet form, the metaverse is still in the initial stage of convergent development, and various metaverses are being constructed as the basis for beneficial exploration and realization of the final mature version of the metaverse. The cultural and tourism category Metaverse is a product born to provide an immersive consumer experience for cultural and tourism projects. It is quite different from the general Metaverse.

Therefore, to put it simply, the cultural and tourism metaverse refers to: built with blockchain as the underlying technology, created with the natural or human landscape resources existing in reality as a template, and designed to provide consumers with an immersive cultural and tourism experience Metaverse.

There is no doubt that the combination of the metaverse and cultural tourism will inevitably give consumers updated experience and feelings, but whether it will truly become an increasingly popular new form of travel and cultural experience, different people have different opinions. Simone Puorto, CEO and founder of Simone Puorto Consulting, believes that the Metaverse can bring significant changes to the tourism and hospitality industry and become the direction of the hospitality industry, but it will be difficult to achieve in the next 5 to 10 years. Even during the epidemic, the metaverse immersive cultural tourism realized by technologies such as VR and AR has never really become mainstream. In general, as a futurist, Simone Puorto has a very positive attitude towards Metaverse immersive cultural tourism, but he also said: "The Metaverse application in the travel industry is 40% exhibition, 10% Casual and 50% hype ."

In contrast, Max Starkov, an adjunct professor at New York University, argues: "The metaverse is the opposite of travel. Travel is about indulging your five senses: taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight. At best, the metaverse allows you to experience two of them. Species: hearing and vision ." But even though Professor Max Starkov does not agree that the Metaverse immersive cultural tourism can bring a transformative impact to the tourism industry, he has to admit: "The Metaverse will experience a significant impact on travel and tourism in the short to medium term. There is a certain degree of marginal application in hotels.” Hotel expert Frederic Gonzalo expressed his views on Metaverse Culture and Tourism from the perspective of labor and social productivity: “We better not expect the Metaverse to have any tangible effects in a few years. Stuff. Because it won't address pressing issues, especially labor shortages , which will continue to exist."

Of course, there are still many people who are still on the sidelines. After all, the development path of Metaverse immersive cultural tourism is not as clear as the current popular Metaverse games. On the one hand, with the increasing number of active users of the metaverse and virtual worlds (“within the next ten years, virtual worlds will reach 1 billion people” is a bold prediction made by the rebranded FaceBook Meta), and humans “live elsewhere” The "endogenous spiritual pursuit of" will inevitably give birth to the demand for travel, which may create a huge consumer market; on the other hand, limited by the difficult to break through metaverse interoperability technology and the incompleteness of immersive experience Max Starkov insists that only visual and auditory experiences are not enough), and the development prospects of immersive cultural tourism in the metaverse are unpredictable .

Teachers Wang Jinwei and Yu Deguang from Beijing International Studies University believe that the transformation of Metaverse Cultural Tourism to traditional cultural tourism mainly focuses on the reconstruction of identity, scene and objects. The concept of "identity isomerization through identity mapping" conveyed by the Metaverse is consistent with some phenomena in the current tourism development. The meaning of tourism itself is not only to see different scenery, but also to experience different scenery. Life, withdraw from the day-to-day life, and experience a different life in an unfamiliar environment.

Therefore, in the "game space" of the Metaverse, the isomerization of identities, scenes and objects can allow consumers to obtain a new experience. On this basis, after superimposing social attributes, the interaction based on identity mapping is realized. This is an abstract expression of the attraction of Metaverse Cultural Tourism, and it is also a subversive change to traditional cultural tourism projects. Sister Sa's team, also in the futuristic camp, holds a relatively positive attitude towards the development prospects of the Metaverse immersive cultural tourism.

1. The nature of the cultural tourism universe

How the law regulates the metaverse depends on the legal nature of the metaverse. Sister Sa's team believes that under the current legal supervision system, the current cultural and tourism Metaverse products may be regarded as: (1) part of the tourism resources themselves, electronic or digital; (2) tourism cultural and creative products; (3) Games; (4) E-commerce platforms, etc.

First of all, cultural and tourism metaverse products are created or constructed on the basis of concrete existing natural or human historical landscape resources, and their creation basis and source of inspiration come directly from one or more specific natural or human landscapes. Therefore, if the metaverse is a direct copy of the cultural tourism resource, or is similar to the extent that the average consumer can directly link it with the natural or humanistic tourism resource that exists in reality, the regulatory agency will consider it as Part of natural or cultural tourism resources, digital or electronic part is also possible.

As for tourism cultural and creative products, the current Metaverse manufacturers, including some partners of Sister Sa's legal team, associate natural and cultural landscapes with tourism products, and make highly recognizable or iconic landscapes as NFT or various digital collections are delivered to consumers in the form of gifts or points exchange, thereby adding more freshness, consumption and attractiveness to traditional cultural tourism projects.

Usually, the casting and distribution of cultural and tourism NFTs or digital collections as cultural and creative products requires not only blockchain filing , but also special authorization from the relevant cultural and tourism resource authorities . For example, a relatively safe approach in practice is for the relevant cultural and tourism resource management units that cooperate with the enterprise to first register the trademark of their cultural and tourism resources, and then agree to the enterprise to use the trademark or image by signing an authorization agreement. Mint digital collections such as NFTs. This approach has a certain degree of reference and reference for the cultural and tourism metaverse.

As for the metaverse of games and e-commerce platforms. At present, due to the difficulty of obtaining game version numbers for game-like metaverse products in my country, the higher requirements for distribution and operation entities, and the far difference between the gameplay and the positioning of cultural and tourism metaverse, whether it is metaverse enterprises or regulatory agencies It is less likely to be regarded as a game. Although it does not rule out the possibility of selling cultural and creative NFTs, digital collections, and even real commodities in the cultural and tourism metaverse, there are currently few practices in the e-commerce metaverse, so it remains to be practiced and observed. 3. The potential risks of the cultural and tourism metaverse

Like other Metaverse products, there are also legal risks in the issuance and operation of cultural and tourism Metaverse products.

(1) Civil risk

The civil risks that are prone to occur in cultural and tourism Metaverse products are concentrated in two categories: breach of contract risk and tort risk .

As far as default risks are concerned, most of them are caused by unclear authorization between enterprises and cooperative cultural and tourism resource management units . In practice, when a considerable number of enterprises obtain the relevant intellectual property rights authorization, the cooperation agreement does not clearly stipulate the clear and clear authorization scope, authorization type, authorization method, etc. and breach of contract in the process of operating the Metaverse.

Referring to the cooperation model between museums and Metaverse Enterprises, according to Article 1 of Chapter 3 of the document "Operation Guidelines for Copyright, Trademark Rights and Brand Authorization of Museum Collection Resources (Trial)" issued by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage: "Authorization is divided into direct authorization and entrustment. Authorization. The museum comprehensively evaluates the actual situation of its own collection resources, brand value, management and operation level, etc., and appropriately chooses direct authorization, entrusted authorization, etc., to authorize the copyright, trademark and brand of collection resources, and protect its own rights and interests." Metaverse Enterprises While cooperating with the cultural and tourism resource management unit, the cooperation agreement should also specify the type of authorization, the scope and method of authorization, and stipulate specific matters such as the specific utilization method of the authorized cultural relics. It is better to be cautious, comprehensive and meticulous.

Taking copyright as an example, when distributing digital collections of picture works, it is generally necessary to obtain the authorization of the reproduction rights, distribution rights and information network dissemination rights of the corresponding picture works . In view of the current domestic legal regulations on digital collections are not clear, based on our relevant business experience, due to the particularity of digital collections casting, distribution and transaction scenarios, the authorization of the copyright owner should usually specify the content of the authorized works (which need to be delivered in electronic form. ), authorized to cast and distribute digital collections through a specific platform, and it should be clear that even if the authorization period expires, users who have obtained digital collections of corresponding works still have the right to continue to hold and use (including possible punishment) digital collections according to the rules of the corresponding platform. .

As for the risk of infringement, a common phenomenon in practice is that some departments in charge of cultural and tourism resources do not enjoy the complete rights of the cultural relics in charge of them. Other rights such as trademark rights of others. In this case, Sister Sa's team suggests that companies can hire a professional team of lawyers to conduct due diligence before signing a specific cooperation agreement with the cultural and tourism resources authority to avoid infringing on the rights of others in subsequent normal operations.

(2) Criminal risk

In addition to the cases mentioned by Sister Sa's legal team in the Metaverse compliance report series, the illegal absorption of public deposits, illegal fund-raising, fraud, etc. using the Metaverse as a gimmick violates the criminal law, improper use of cultural tourism like the Metaverse, violation of The pre-law of China's intellectual property protection regulations, illegal use of intellectual property without the permission of the intellectual property owner, violation of the state's management of intellectual property rights and the lawful rights and interests of intellectual property owners, or acts of large illegal gains or serious circumstances It also constitutes a crime of infringement of intellectual property rights .

In the past, China's regulations on intellectual property crimes were scattered in various legal documents such as the Trademark Law, the Patent Law, and the Supplementary Regulations on Punishing the Crime of Counterfeiting and Registered Trademarks, and the Decision on Punishing the Crime of Infringing Copyrights promulgated by the National People's Congress. , it is not recognized as a separate crime category. On March 14, 1997, the Fifth Session of the Eighth National People's Congress passed the revision of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China. The categories of crimes are stipulated in Articles 213 to 222 of the Criminal Law " crimes of disrupting the order of the socialist market economy ".

Specifically, the crimes of infringement of intellectual property rights stipulated in the current system of my country's Criminal Law include: (1) the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks; (2) the crime of selling commodities with counterfeit registered trademarks, and the crime of illegally manufacturing or selling illegally manufactured registered trademarks; (3) The crime of copyright infringement and the crime of selling infringing copies; (4) The crime of counterfeiting patents; (5) The crime of infringing trade secrets and other specific crimes. Therefore, greater caution should be exercised when related products involve intellectual property rights such as trademarks, copyrights, patents and trademarks .

It should be noted that the subjective aspect of the crime of infringement of intellectual property rights stipulated in the Criminal Law can only be constituted by intention. Subjectively, there is no intention and it does not belong to the crime of infringement of intellectual property rights stipulated in the Criminal Law. Of course, even in the above circumstances, if the perpetrator recognizes the possibility of intellectual property infringement, his or her subjective mentality may still be evaluated as intentional (direct intentional or indirect intentional) and thus constitute the corresponding crime .

write at the end

Sister Sa's legal team believes that Metaverse immersive cultural tourism, as a new form of cultural tourism products, in the process of combining with traditional cultural tourism in the future, can promote major changes in traditional tourism projects through immersive experience, thereby developing a prospect The broader tourism market even has the potential to change the way of tourism. In general, Metaverse immersive cultural tourism has a very broad space for development, but everything depends on the progress and development of technology and how we apply new technologies .

At present, Metaverse immersive cultural tourism is still in the development stage, just like a gold mine with huge wealth, which needs to be further developed by us.