General Provisions of Digital Property Law and How to Categorize Digital Assets

Abstract

This article deals with general provisions of digital property law and categorization of digital assets. Distributed data storage technologies and their applications have created a market for digital assets, forming a new intangible, digital type of property. The formation of digital property law, which is becoming increasingly important, is based on the functional approach of implementing digital assets as property into the law, which necessitates a rethinking and transformation of property law, similar to the transition from exclusively tangible objects of property rights to intangible objects such as intellectual property, as well as from securities and documents of title (bill of lading, bill of exchange) in paper form to fully dematerialized securities, electronic documents of title, and online accounts as property. The transformation of property law for the purposes of digital assets is based on the implementation of new, sui generis property rights and the extension of rules on property rights to objects that were not previously objects of law or were created for obligatory claims, as a result of which objects arising from actual or contractual relations acquire a in rem and quasi-in rem legal regime. Starting with an overview of the concepts of property law of digital assets, the article then discusses the concept of property, and then the concept of digital assets, their nature and classification of the main types of digital assets as property. The formation of digital property law inherent in modern law is a global trend characterized by the gradual recognition of certain types of digital assets as property and the creation of functional equivalents of possession, legal titles and remedies that are inherent in traditional property law, taking into account the intangible nature of digital assets. The author of this research starts with an overview of the general provisions of property law and digital property law, the article then discusses general provisions categorizing of digital assets, and categorizing types of digital assets.