ANALYSIS: VR Injuries—A Cost of Doing Business in the Metaverse?

No longer just a futuristic buzzword, the metaverse is evolving into its own industry. But with new virtual-world opportunities come real-world legal risks.

Two recent court proceedings—and one tech giant’s inventive user terms—show that claims of physical injuries arising from virtual reality (VR) are worth keeping an eye on.

A New Kind of Digital Risk

Companies that integrate software and social media into their business offerings are often concerned with a core set of legal risks: privacy and cybersecurity incidents, intellectual property battles, and heated content-moderation debates.

But when it comes to the metaverse—a “3D world wide web” that enables ...