This Research Handbook analyses the role of law in a universe fractured by new disruptive technologies such as metaverse platforms. Contributing authors explore how the law will adapt as new dimensions of the metaverse are introduced to issues such as intellectual property rights, e-commerce, NFTs and cryptocurrencies, data privacy, contract law, as well as human rights, consumer law and criminal law. The abuse and manipulation of users is studied in several contributions.

This Research Handbook analyzes the role of law in a universe fractured by new and disruptive technologies such as metaverse platforms. Contributing authors explore how the law will and must adapt as new dimensions are introduced to issues such as intellectual property rights, e-commerce, NFTs and cryptocurrencies, data privacy, contract law, but also human rights, consumer law and criminal law. The issue of abuse and manipulation of users is the focus of several contributions. In this innovative Research Handbook, global experts discuss the philosophical and legal questions raised by the use of immersive platforms for leisure and gaming, as well as professional, commercial and medical activities. The authors employ legal frameworks to understand the metaverse from the perspectives of personality, property, obligation, harm, and liability, examining how current law succeeds and falters in regulating the challenges presented by virtual worlds. They consider the dangers to ordinary citizens and vulnerable consumers and provide insights on how legislation should be developed prior to the creation of a fully functioning metaverse in order to prevent the erosion of fundamental human rights. This book is a crucial resource for scholars and students of Web 3.0 and AI law. Its comprehensive coverage of the intersection between law and the metaverse is indispensable for professionals in the field.

The field of artificial intelligence (AI) has made tremendous advances in the last two decades, but as smart as AI is now, it is getting smarter and becoming more autonomous. This raises a host of challenges to current legal doctrine, including whether AI/algorithms should count as ‘speech’, whether AI should be regulated under antitrust and criminal law statutes, and whether AI should be considered as an agent under agency law or be held responsible for injuries under tort law. This book contains chapters from US and international law scholars on the role of law in an age of increasingly smart AI, addressing these and other issues that are critical to the evolution of the field.

This discerning and detailed Research Handbook examines the law of trademarks, unfair competition, and dilution from a variety of law and economics perspectives. With a comprehensive exploration of trademarks and trademark law, it provides an excellent illustration of the analytical diversity that the law and economics approach can bring to legal issues.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline, thanks to generous funding support from Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). The Research Handbook on Health, AI and the Law explores the use of AI in healthcare, identifying the important laws and ethical issues that arise from its use. Adopting an international approach, it analyses the varying responses of multiple jurisdictions to the use of AI and examines the influence of major religious and secular ethical traditions.

Virtual and augmented reality raise significant questions for law and policy. When should virtual world activities or augmented reality images count as protected First Amendment ‘speech’, and when are they instead a nuisance or trespass? When does copying them infringe intellectual property laws? When should a person (or computer) face legal consequences for allegedly harmful virtual acts? The Research Handbook on the Law of Virtual and Augmented Reality addresses these questions and others, drawing upon free speech doctrine, criminal law, issues of data protection and privacy, legal rights for increasingly intelligent avatars, and issues of jurisdiction within virtual and augmented reality worlds.

This thoroughly updated Research Handbook examines the recent exponential growth of data use in society and its implications for legal research and practice. It explores contemporary research in the field of data science, as well as the operationalization of data for use in healthcare, urban governance and smart household devices, among others.

The digital transition of our economies is now entering a phase of broad and deep societal impact. While there is one overall transition, there are many different sectoral transformations, from health and legal services to tax reports and taxi rides, as well as a rising number of transversal trends and policy issues, from widespread precarious employment and privacy concerns to market monopoly and cybercrime. They all are fertile ground for researchers, as established laws and regulations, organizational structures, business models, value networks and workflow routines are contested and displaced by newer alternatives. This Research Handbook offers a rich and interdisciplinary synthesis of some of the current thinking on the digital transformations underway.

This thorough and incisive Research Handbook reconstructs the scholarly discourses surrounding the field of law and technology, discussing the salient legal, governance and societal problems stemming from the use of different technologies, and how they should be treated under various legal frameworks. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

This comprehensive and insightful Research Handbook addresses the interpretation of international solidarity within topical legal regimes and regional systems, as well as in relation to decolonization and the concepts of Ummah and Ubuntu. It examines the way in which international solidarity enables the global community to respond to intercontinental challenges, including climate change, forced migration, health emergencies, and inequality.