Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 4

Succession of Digital Rights in Brazil: In Search of Appropriate Legal Treatment Dóris Ghilardi α & Jorge Nunes da Rosa Filho σ Abstract- The digital age steadily expands its horizons, requiring constant adaptations in the social, political, economic, and legal spheres. At present, one acquires goods and services over the internet; works remotely; stores documents in the cloud; invests in cryptocurrencies; interacts through social networks; publishes photos, videos and messages. All these digital assets challenge the law in several aspects, including their fate after the user's death. Focusing on the issue of digital inheritance, this article aims to analyze the succession of digital assets. In the absence of a specific law, traditional legal categories of civil law and inheritance theory are revisited in order to accommodate these assets, and to present solutions proposed by foreign law - legislation and judicial decisions - in order to seek guidelines for the adequate treatment of the subject in Brazil. Given the complexity of the matter in question, we conclude that there is an urgent need to regulate digital inheritance taking into consideration its specific features, such as the mixed nature of the assets that compose it. Keywords: digital heritage. legal nature. legitimate succession. testamentary succession. last will and testamentary dispositions. I ntroduction ince the 1940s, with the beginning of the cybernetic revolution and the subsequent, gradual and inexorable change in the global social order by means of network communicability - internet , e-mails , discussion forums, social networks, search engines, free, open, and collective contribution sites - the logic of human relations has been irremediably changed. An environment marked by disruption and the intangible, with no strict separation between reality and the symbolic. A space of constant interactions, in which a large amount of data and information is created and inserted, transformed into a digital assets. The fate of these assets, in case of the death of its owner, is one of the delicate questions that have challenged jurists worldwide, justifying the present research. As such, this article focuses on the succession of digital assets - digital inheritance, and aims to address some of its intricate issues, such as the legal nature of digital assets (whether of personal, patrimonial or mixed content) and, based on that, investigate the possibility of transmission in case of death of the rightholder, either by last will disposition or by law. In this regard, it is clearly relevant to study to what extent the rights directly linked to the new network economy and the digital information society can be subject to the civil norms in force, applicable to analog data, or to what extent they deserve specific regulations, requiring the issue of new laws. To this end, the article begins with the presentation of the new scenario, inaugurated with the information society and new technologies, in order to introduce some of the legal challenges contemplated by the theme. In the sequence, it analyzes existing bills in Brazil on digital inheritance and laws on regulation of internet use and protection of personal data with the intention of demonstrating the inexistence of specific legal provision on succession of this type of heritage. It then looks at technical issues such as the verification of the possibility of legal classification of digital data in traditional legal categories such as property, as well as the study of the classification and legal nature of these digital assets, and then addresses the terms of use and services of digital platforms and tries to find harmony between the interests of users and those of online service providers. Finally, based on the presentation of Spanish law and German paradigm decision, the aim is to find guidelines and solutions to guide the appropriate treatment of the issue in Brazilian territory. In addition to these two foreign analyses, the text also analyzes some legal provisions on the subject in Argentina, the United States and France. The research, of utmost relevance to the current context, is based on technical data, national and foreign doctrine, Brazilian legislation, as well as international legislation and judicial decisions, in order to foster debate and seek plausible alternatives, given the complexity of the issue under discussion. I. I nformation S ociety and D igital D ata: A C hange of S cenery With the advent of the information society and new technologies, a new virtual environment has opened up, identified by some authors as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the 4.0 Revolution, also seen by others as a passage from the Industrial Revolution to the Post-Industrial Society. A new context has emerged, in which the production of goods would have given way to the S © 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue IV Version I 21 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 A 1 Author α : Doctor and Master in Legal Sciences. Profesor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. Researcher. e-mail: dorisghilardi@gmail.com Author σ : Master`s student at the Postgraduate Program in Lawn At the Federal University of Santa Catarina. Researcher. Attorney.