This project funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciene (JSPS) analysed UK and Japanese copyright laws and how they relate to the Metaverse.

The project awarded to Professor Dinusha Mendis led to a short term invitational professorship at Waseda University Tokyo from July – October 2023. It was carried out in collaboration with Professor Tatsuhiro Ueno at Waseda University.

The fellowship led to a symposium and two outputs (to be published);

The first, an article titled ‘‘Mind the (virtual) Gap’: A Critical Analysis of UK and Japanese Copyright law relating to immersive technologies and the metaverse concludes that copyright exceptions such as freedom of panorama and incidental inclusion are helpful to the development of the Metaverse. However, it identifies challenges in both UK and Japanese copyright laws. In particular, the research demonstrates the challenges posed by both UK and Japanese copyright laws, relating to the ‘freedom of panorama’ exception. On the other hand, the research illustrates that Japan’s incidental inclusion could be of great benefit to the development of the Metaverse, in comparison to the UK’s incidental inclusion provision.

To distil the research into a format that is accessible to stakeholders beyond academia (i.e., businesses, policy makers etc.), the researchers collaborated with student artists at the Waseda University Manga Club in designing and producing a manga-style booklet which captures the research set out in the article. The manga titled ‘Copyright in the Metaverse: A Journey into the Future’  was written by Prof. Dinusha Mendis and Prof. Tatsuhiro Ueno with the illustrations provided by artists at the Waseda Manga Club.

The manga will be published in December 2024 in English and Japanese and as such will be available and accessible to a wide audience.

A research symposium outlining the initial results was held at Waseda University in October 2024.