Succession of Digital Rights in Brazil: In Search of Appropriate Legal Treatment

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.