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In the beginning there was nothing… or very little. Starting from barter, the man never stopped innovating his way to trade, almost as if it were his second nature… Agriculture and breeding, maritime explorations in search of new products, development of transport on land and the sea as in the sky. Trade gradually crossed borders, cities, villages, roads, and dangers to be fulfilled directly at home, camped in front of a computer, tablet or smartphone. Who these days has never bought online? Since already several years, the stars have aligned in favor of marketplaces, these giants of digital commerce through which almost everything buys…

Widespread, the law has worked to make room for digital commerce in favor of consumers, but also to guarantee competition and market stability. The legislator has
moreover warned against the forms of disloyalty, the problems of conformity and framed the deadlines of deliveries and retractation. The Ministry of the Economy hastened to denounce the
drifts of dropshippinga recent and yet legal practice of digital commerce.

Yet, despite this rapid and everyday adaptation, it appears that digital commerce is evolving in a significant and different way. Initially focused on
consumption of tangible products or services, digital commerce is gradually slipping into the sale of virtual products and services… via other worlds…

The metaverse: towards a transformation of digital commerce

And if the movie Steven Spielberg Ready player One, released in 2018, turned out to be a prophetic image of the market of tomorrow? Virtual worlds connected to the internet, where everything can be bought
via virtual currencies and securities? Where everyone would have the opportunity to live the life of their dreams through their avatar? If the reality does not yet exceed the fiction, some companies have understood
the potential that the metaverse could generate in e-commerce and data collection. It is no coincidence that in 2021 the Facebook company changed its name to
Meta in view of its futuristic program. If the concept seems to come out of a science fiction novel, the number of people connected in these virtual universes continues to increase, and new
emerging practices… Ranging from the purchase of virtual apartments, clothing, and works of art…

the metaverse is above all based on an immersive experience made possible by 3D technologies, plunging the consumer into a virtual world. As surprising as that
may seem, the avatar of the user can buy products designed virtually and which do not necessarily exist in reality. Recently Nike has massively invested in the
virtual mode by selling its range of shoes: CryptoKicks whose prices can cap more than 10,000 dollars… Others have the ambition to make the metaverse a
vector for acquiring virtual real estate through sales, development, rental management, on the same model as standard real estate agencies.

Virtual reality headsets, tablets, controllers, there are many products sold physically that are intended to optimize the experience of the metaverse. A high-level experience
definition that gives users a higher degree of confidence in the quality of the products they buy. With stores and virtual fittings, the digital commerce of
metaverse will no longer be subject to the constraints of opening hours, compliance with delivery deadlines, compliance issues, recruitment of salespeople, etc. If the system seems too
beautiful to be true, it is in any case virtual and all the more beneficial since it makes it possible to test the popularity of a product without manufacturing it while providing the consumer with a
optimal experience.

The first experience of NFT’s

The strong enthusiasm experienced by the metaverse today is mainly due to the success of NFT’s which lay the foundation for the new electronic commerce. Started in
the art market sector with the dazzling success of the “Bored Ape Yacht Club” collection, whose images sell for exorbitant prices, the NFT’s have gradually opened up to other
sectors… The cinema took advantage of this momentum to invest the NFT’s market with a first film entirely financed in this way and directed by a certain director named Martin
Scorsese… As you will have understood, the NFT’s will have benefited in their infancy from powerful relays, stars, entrepreneurs and influencers. They are even a token of belonging
social, a closed and exclusive club bringing together a community of individuals holding the same family of NFT’s.

First experience of the commercial metaverse, the enthusiasm around NFT’s has only pushed the big companies to arm themselves to conquer a new world.
Amazon has started to equip itself with technology from the metaverse while eBay plans to launch its platform for selling NFT’s. Avant-garde and visionary, the fashion sector has no
escaped this dynamic to take on this new form of creativity. Fashion products, games and NFT’s works, diversify the arsenal designed by Gucci, Louis Vuitton, or even
Balenciaga in partnership with renowned designers…

Even if the harvest of glory may experience setbacks such as the recent fall of NFT’s with the bursting of the speculative cryptocurrency bubble, the fact remains that the
mechanism fascinates and will continue to improve. NFT’s have proven to the world that digital commerce is undergoing profound change across the metaverse. Any further
than a simple investment, it has metamorphosed into a gateway to a new way of consuming by carving out the lion’s share of 21st century business.

A legal world to rebuild?

The changes in digital commerce do not take place entirely without clouds and bring their share of questions. If digital, consumer and competition rights
occupy a ready-made place when it comes to classic marketplaces, certain sprains and hesitations are to be raised in the metaverse. On the one hand, it seems difficult to imagine the future of the metaverse without the decisive action of GAFAM raising the question of a competitive asymmetry. On the consumer side, some are advocating for a legal extension of its
personality and legal protection in the metaverse, while the more conservative propose a distinction of regimes.

Intellectual property law also seems affected by these developments, with the uncertain legal qualification of NFTs having something to do with it. Being “legal aliens”, oscillating
between title deed and simple token similar to virtual currency, the actions attached to them are uncertain. The relationship between counterfeiting and NFT’s has in particular been the subject of
several disputes in the United States. The New York Court had in particular ruled in favor of Hermes about the diverted reproduction in a digital work of his iconic bags
in the work Meta Birkin.

Rome was not built in a day, it will certainly take a few years before the metaverse takes root in practice and digital commerce takes on a new
dimension. The rules of the game will most certainly be set by practice, and the evolution of this new form of business, and the mentalities surrounding it. Some lament the
disintermediation of exchanges and the disconnection of morality at the cost of a new way of consuming, which will change in depth. Nevertheless, this phenomenon is
already at our doorstep… it’s not about the future… but about now!

Tribune written by Raphaël A. Hérimian, business lawyer

<<< Also read: GhostMarket: Simple and profitable NFT trading >>>

Since April 2022, the Cité internationale de Paris has been selling NFT drawings of a virtual architecture project by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, sold as the Maison de l’Ukraine project. A colonist to follow in the metaverse?

If virtual worlds have existed since the birth of science fiction, and we have been used to visualizing them from an early age, in recent years the rise of the metaverse, a very augmented reality, has been pushing architects and actors of the design of space to question the possible interactions between the reality of architecture and its digital avatar.

Until now, thinking had remained forward-looking for architects-designers. For many, the digital model is not yet a fundamental daily thing, although BIM offers possibilities which, if it could be used to its full power, would be a fantastic maintenance management tool for complex buildings, the living memory of the tripaille to anticipate in time the evolution of the life of the buildings.

The project of La Maison de l’Ukraine, designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, on the initiative of the foundation of the Cité universitaire internationale de Paris, and sold since the spring in the form of NFT brings with it a farandole of questions.

In April 2022, the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris wanted to welcome and support from the start of the 2022 academic year up to 500 university students affected by the war in Ukraine. For this, the foundation had asked the person skilled in the art to imagine a virtual house ” but highly rooted in reality to unite Ukrainian nationals as the statement explained. This is a first surprise since it would have seemed logical for the project, even in an emergency, to be carried out with the assistance of a Ukrainian architect.

It is from there that the story requires a bit of concentration. Welcoming 500 students in the 43 existing houses and offering them all the logistics they would need was the starting point. Concretely, no construction in sight but a virtual project. However, since its creation at the end of the First World War, the Cité internationale has not lacked references in architectural terms with the works of Prouvé, Le Corbusier, Foujita… in this regard, the heritage belongs to the Universities of Paris, represented by the chancellery.

Let’s move quickly on the choice of the architect selected to participate in such a project. The Cité internationale is a private law foundation, it remains recognized as being of public utility. Since 2017, the national foundation Cité internationale universitaire de Paris has been chaired by Jean-Marc Sauvé, incidentally honorary vice-president of the Council of State. This great machine, of historically humanist inspiration, had no choice but to set its sights on the designer of a Poutinian ode in the heart of Paris* to build wind around a Maison de l’Ukraine that does not exist ? And who will never exist?

The agency imagined a reminiscence of constructivist architecture, whose volumes and use of materials recall the Ukrainian flag. ” This digital work is also a way of highlighting art and culture as a response to the din and destruction of war. “, adds the press kit. Some people suspect that a virtual constructivist pavilion imagined in 2022 is a beautiful quote from Ukrainian culture!

The constructivist pavilion project consists of three drawings, it was probably necessary to go quickly with the facade, a bedroom and a collective space with a piano. The degree of involvement of details leaves speechless. These works were then converted into NFT to be sold in order to finance the arrival of students from September. The starting price is 0.05 ETH (Ethereum is another bitcoin-like virtual currency) or about $86. Code architecture is not that onerous.

Beyond the cynicism and the incredible lack of culture shown here by the contracting authority, how can the State support this initiative? If the coffers are empty, why throw money away by working on virtual projects? Does Cité U no longer have the financial and intellectual means to have architects work on architectures of their time? Yes, for Ukrainian students, time is running out. Since they have to be accommodated in various houses on campus, what is the use of virtual architecture? Wouldn’t the auction of the drawings for the project that took place this summer with Sotheby’s have been enough?

Another question, all in all very simple, is that of the definition of architecture. Should it be designed to claim the title? In absolute terms, can we say that the buyers offered themselves a house, or rather a facade, a bedroom and a room with a piano, signed Jean-Michel Wilmotte, to be implanted in a virtual reality, without any technical constraint? , climatic, contextual or even constructive?

If Geeks like to imagine that the metaverse is the world of tomorrow, humans, of flesh and bone, will always need architects to design even the premises useful for manufacturing and accommodation associated technologies, for this in a certain reality.

And then there is what falls within the scope of the opportunist at a time when the profession is undergoing crisis one after the other: crisis in materials, crisis in recruitment, crisis in remuneration, crisis in recognition… Architecture must increasingly take up challenges, environmental, constructive, social at a time when the planet is suffocating, resources are becoming scarce and billions of people in the world remain without a protective roof. The time of architects who have the possibility could then not be more usefully used by confronting reality rather than becoming mere creators of content without purpose?

The temptation is great to flirt with the metaverse as it sells a city to be designed contrary to our current lifestyles. Without norm, without faith, without law, in all individuality, without time limit, without constructive limit. A world without rules could, on the other hand, offer a playground for rediscovering a taste for experimentation, testing or even the preliminary project model. Looking at the work for sale, nothing is less certain.

The experiment carried out by the Cité internationale de Paris has no consequences for the profession of architect. However, the metaverse is now warning of other dangers that threaten the profession and the relationship that the general public may have with the image of the built environment.

Indeed, it was already necessary to compose with the madness of return of the owners of private work which in the name of a sacrosanct financial balance sheet, take part in the real estate speculation with the complicity of the policies of the city. They had already fully understood the usefulness of virtual reality in a marketing spirit to help future buyers to better visualize the possible layout of the space with enough blinkers to avoid space misfires.

These same promoters already abound in the virtual space by proposing systems of opaque real estate speculation and without legal protection. With NFTs, even placements of “ father stone-paper way also find their equivalent in the void.

Should architects be complicit in a new way of designing that is increasingly lacking in meaning?

Leah Muller

*Read our article Putin project manager, it rocks

Dan Houser had announced to leave Rockstar Games in the spring of 2020, to everyone’s surprise. The man is indeed co-founder of the studios with his brother Sam, and had written almost all the GTA games, as well as the two Red Dead Redemptions. Suffice to say that he was a key figure at Rockstar.

If he has since set up Absurd Venture, nothing has yet come out of this new company, and it is elsewhere that houser stands out today. He has indeed invested more than thirteen million dollars in Revolving Games, a studio until now specialized in free-to-play on mobile and which intends to use the blockchain (and therefore NFTs) for its next titles. A bundle of millions in addition to the first twenty-five already collected by the studio from various investors. By the way, Dan Houser also offers himself a place as an advisor in the management team of Revolving Games.

Two projects are in the studio’s pipeline: an MMO with 4x mechanics under the Battlestar Galactica license, and a game that will be inspired, according to the studio’s statements, by Nintendo’s great titles, such as Zelda or Animal Crossing, Skyborne Legacy. The latter was, according to the latest news, about to be released, scheduled for the beginning of October. Both titles have the ambition to be “AAA games that the industry will want to look back on”…

Dan Houser is the second “ex-GTA team” to give in to the sirens of web3. We have indeed understood between the lines that Everywhere, the ambitious project of Leslie Benzies (producer of GTA 3, 4 and 5) should also integrate blockchain technologies.

Did the creators of GTA work too much on gangster stories, to dive into this giant scam that is NFTs? Or will this technology end up imposing itself in the video game world, by dint of big projects that carry it? Because if the players seem to reject them en masse, it seems that there are always new investors to finance projects integrating NFTs… And above all, will GTA VI end up being released one day?

NFTs driven by music – And it is very necessary these days. Bear market, bear market and another crypto winter: the news remains very gloomy. However, that is without counting the NFT technology which continues to interest many sectors of the entertainment industry. At the start of the week, it is therefore the Universal Music Group (UMG) which sets the tone, together with two veterans of the music industry: Hit Boy and James Fauntleroy. In tune, the tenors ofamusement join forces for the NFT group of the Bored Ape Yacht Club: kingship.

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The NFT Kingship group on the front of the stage

The information was communicated yesterday, without fanfare. Two giants of US Rap production will embark, like Eminem and Snoop Dogg, on the Bored Ape Yatch Club adventure under a UMG label. Hit Boyproducer among others of Lil Wayne and James Fauntleroy, producer of Timbalake or Cardy B, get to work. They become so “co-executive producers and members of the band’s sound design team”.

This partnership pleases both parties. On the one hand, the UMG which breaks down slowly, but surely, its score and its conquest of the NFTs. On the other, Céline Joshua, the creator of Kingship adds a string to her bow:

“The journey of Kingship is rooted in storytelling, experiences and music. I can’t wait to see what will come from the crossover between web 3 collectors and creators and the music industry. »

Well orchestrated, this trio is in the logical sequence of the BAYC empire and its Metaverse Otherside which is starting to build. L’Universal Music Group is not, however, the only tenor to confirm his growing interest in NFTs. Indeed, industrialists, like Sony, artists, like Jamiroquai and Snoop Dogg: all tune their violins. The NFT will be the tomorrow hit.

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