The Metaverse Standards Forum is a non-profit, member-funded consortium of standards-related organizations, companies, and institutions that are cooperating to foster interoperability for an open and inclusive metaverse. Originally founded in June 2022, the Forum was incorporated in April 2023 to accelerate its mission to enable and promote broad cooperation and coordination over metaverse-related standards activities.
The Forum does not itself create standards but instead generates domain and technical reports, use case and requirements recommendations, pilots, testbeds and plugfests, open source tooling, best practices and guidelines, and other data, insights, and visibility to enable standards organizations to accelerate the development and evolution of standards that will be essential to building the metaverse.
- Members are enabled to participate in Forum meetings.
- Forum participation creates no patent licensing obligations.
- Forum Activities are non-confidential.
- All Forum deliverables are freely and publicly distributed.
Help Drive an Open Metaverse
Forum membership puts your organization at the forefront of this unique industry initiative working to help the metaverse reach its full potential. Since launching in June 2022 with 37 founding members, over 2,400 organizations have joined the forum, and more are joining every day.
By following well-documented policies and procedures, the Forum allows for equal balance among stakeholders and for decisions to be made by consensus.
View the Forum Membership Agreement and Forum Bylaws.
Membership Tiers and Benefits
There are two tiers of Forum membership.
- Participants. Participant membership is free and provides access to all Forum member plenary meetings and Domain Group activities.
- Principals. Principals play a key role in Forum oversight with voting rights in member plenary meetings, voting participation in the Forum Oversight Committee that manages the Domain Group Pipeline, and the right to stand for election to the Board of Directors and Advisory Panels, and vote in Board and Advisory Panel elections.
Participation by Standards Organizations – ‘COPP’ Designation
The Forum values participation by a broad diversity of standardization organizations that contribute directly or indirectly to metaverse-related standardization by producing specifications, policies, recommendations, or open-source software through a member-driven collaborative process under representative governance. The Forum designates such an organization as a ‘COPP—a ‘Collaborative Organization with Public Products.’
Organizations may apply for COPP designation at any time, typically on joining or annual renewal. Once an organization is granted COPP designation by the Forum, it receives a number of additional member benefits:
- Principal dues are capped at $999, regardless of organization size or revenue.
- COPP organizations may apply for a dues waiver to $0 if Principal dues are a genuine barrier to participation.
- COPP organizations may stand for election to the COPP Advisory Panel which enjoys non-voting Board meeting participation.
If your organization is a potential COPP member, but is constrained by your bylaws from executing any membership agreement, or if your organization is not formally incorporated, the Metaverse Standards Forum would like to discuss enabling your organization’s participation through a liaison agreement* or inviting your representation through invited industry experts*. If you would like to explore these options please Contact Us.
* Liaison organizations and Invited Experts are not able to stand for election to the Board or Vote in Board Elections.
Detailed Membership Level Benefits
| Participants | Principals | |
|---|---|---|
| Domain Groups | ||
| Voting Rights in Exploratory and Working Groups | ✔ | ✔ |
| Nominate for Domain Group Officer Positions | ✔ | ✔ |
| Propose New Domain Groups | ✔ | ✔ |
| Provide Feedback on Domain Group Proposals | ✔ | ✔ |
| Member Meetings | ||
| Plenary Meeting Participation | Non-Voting | Voting |
| Oversight Committee | ||
| Participate in Oversight Committee | ✗ | Voting |
| Stand for Oversight Committee Officer Positions | ✗ | ✔ |
| Approve New Domain Groups | ✗ | ✔ |
| Board of Directors | ||
| Nominate for Board of Directors Election | ✗ | ✔ |
| Vote in Board Elections | ✗ | ✔ |
| COPP Advisory Panel | ||
| Nominate for COPP Advisory Panel Election | ✗ | If designated as a COPP |
| Vote in COPP Advisory Panel Election | ✗ | ✔ |
| Outreach & Marketing | ||
| Attend Face to Face (F2F) members meetings & networking events |
✔ | ✔ |
| Access and influence via members-only meetings | ✔ | ✔ |
| Inclusion in Member Directory on Forum website | ✔ | Priority |
| Participate in Forum seminars and webinars | ✔ | Priority |
| Represent the Forum through the Speakers Bureau | ✔ | Priority |
Annual Principal Member Dues
Participant-level membership in the Forum is free.
Principal member dues fund Forum operations and projects, and are payable on joining and then annually to renew. To encourage Forum decision processes to be consensus-based, all Principal Members receive one vote in decisions and elections.
To ensure that Forum Principal-level participation is accessible to organizations of all sizes, Principal dues are tiered by number of company employees and company assets or revenue. Any provided revenue and asset figures used to determine a member’s dues will be kept confidential to Forum staff.
The Forum also caps Principal dues to $999 for accredited academic institutions, and non-profit organizations may apply for a dues waiver to $0 if Principal dues are a genuine barrier to participation.
Principals executing a new membership agreement within 90 days of April 18th 2023 will be eligible for a 10% discount on their membership fees.
| Size and Type of Organization | Principal Dues (USD) |
|---|---|
|
Liaison organizations and Invited industry experts. |
$0 |
|
Micro Enterprises (up to 10 employees AND <$2M revenue/assets) |
$50/employee |
|
Small Enterprises (up to 50 employees AND <$10M revenue/assets) |
$999 |
|
Medium Enterprises (up to 250 employees AND <$50M revenue/assets) |
$4,999 |
|
Large Enterprises (over 250 employees OR > $50M revenue/assets) |
$9,999 |
Annual Renewals
Members will be contacted on the anniversary of their membership requesting that they renew for an additional year. If confirmation is not received within a reasonable period, membership rights, including all voting rights (if any), will be suspended. Correspondence will be sent to the members signatory to the membership agreement.
Original Membership Transition Policy
Any organization that joined the Forum as a Principal or Participant, before the transition date of April 18, 2023, will retain their current level of membership for three months from that date, and then their membership will be transitioned on the timeline below:
- Original Principals who have not executed a new Membership Agreement within three months of the transition date will automatically become Participants for an additional three months. Original principals will not be able to nominate Board members or participate in Board elections unless a new Membership Agreement for Principal membership is executed.
- All original Principals and Participants will automatically cease to be Forum members six months after the transition date unless they have executed a new Membership Agreement and paid any applicable membership fees (if any).
If any information on this page differs from the latest Forum Membership Agreement, the Membership Agreement shall take precedence.