Research on copyright and fair use in the defense Metaverse and STE environment: Focusing on digital twin buildings

Abstract

This study deeply explores the copyright issues related to architectural structures and spatial information when utilizing digital twin technology in the Metaverse and Synthetic Training Environment (STE). The Metaverse is a hyper-realistic platform where reality and virtuality merge, allowing users to experience a variety of activities and interactions within it. STE is an advanced virtual environment for military training, enabling effective exercises by precisely replicating actual battlefield scenarios. In these settings, digital twins serve as accurate digital replicas of real-world architectural structures, significantly contributing to public interest objectives such as training for responses to terrorism in multi-use facilities within national defense and public safety sectors. However, the issues under the Copyright Act that arise during the digital replication process and the applicability of the fair use doctrine have not been clearly defined yet. This study seeks creative and sophisticated institutional solutions to resolve these copyright issues through integration with the latest technologies like BIM(Building Information Modeling). Additionally, it aims to propose a legal framework that balances copyright protection with fair use while leveraging digital twins of architectural structures and spatial information for public interest purposes.