Digital estate and its protection in the chilean legal system

Abstract

The patrimony of the people and the rights to it have broad protection in Chilean legislation, mainly given by the civil code. However, heritage in the 21st century is not only made up of rights and duties of a physical or material nature, but also of digital assets. As regards the latter, some problems of destination arose in the face of the death of the owner. Therefore, the objective of this article is to determine the basis for the configuration of the legal regime of digital assets in Chile and in particular the relationships that these present with the categories of assets, patrimony and their succession in the digital environment. The methods used were doctrinal law, content analysis and doctrinal theoretical study. It is concluded that the current legislation on digital heritage does not meet the requirements, therefore it is necessary to define what is to be understood as a digital asset; specify the content of the digital heritage and expressly distinguish between the aspects of the personality and those of a patrimonial nature with an economic content which derive from the exploitation of certain rights of the personality and which therefore constitute the hereditary heritage.