Digital Thing as an Object of Civil Rights: Legislative Model of Legal Regime and Doctrinal Trends

This article is devoted to a doctrinal analysis of the legislative provisions on the digital thing and scientific trends regarding the development of the doctrine about this new object of civil rights, which is created and exists exclusively in the digital environment and has property value. The objective prerequisites for amending the Civil Code of Ukraine, which reveal the concept of a digital thing, outline the provisional list of benefits that constitute its types, and stipulate the possibility of applying the provisions of this code on things to digital things, are defined. Non-documentary securities, electronic money, and online accounts are not included in the provisional list of types of digital things, which has been the subject of discussion in legal literature. The author’s support for the legislator is based on a scientific analysis of the content of both parts of Article 177 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, which legislatively enshrine the possibility of the existence of objects of civil rights in the material world and/or digital environment, and their essence, legal regime, and the functional load inherent to them in satisfying the interests of participants in civil legal relations. The feasibility of developing a scientific approach to defining the “digital thing” as a separate type of thing, which develops the concept of a broad understanding of a thing not inherent in the national legal system, has been protested. A reservation has been made that the use of the category “digital thing” by the legislator is conditional; it does not require the search for new criteria for classifying things and is made for the legislative possibility of extending the regime of a thing to a digital thing. This approach aligns with trends in common law systems to extend general provisions on titles to property regarding the relations of appropriation and transfer of virtual assets. An emphasis is made on arguments that distinguish a literary work as an object of copyright from material and digital objects in which the content of the work is fixed as separate objects of civil rights, the legal regime of which is established by law. In the digital environment, such a digital object is digital content, the specifics of the supply of which are defined by a separate legislative act. However, if digital content is placed on a physical medium, the provisions on things apply to its turnover.