HERANÇA DIGITAL: a democratização da internet e a proteção do patrimônio digital

Abstract

In addition to the physical assets commonly shared at the time of succession, the outbreak of the internet and, therefore, the new technological forms of social interaction, unveiled a lacunaous facet of the Law that needs to turn its eyes to the digital assets subject to transmission, whether economically appreciable or not. Thus, this article seeks to analyze the legal feasibility of recognizing digitally stored assets as a shareable heritage, associated with the forms of transmission available for such, such as early manifestations of will or digital wills. In this perspective, it is also contemplated the confrontation between the right of the heirs to the inheritance and the constitutional rights of the deceased to private life and privacy, if extended after death and, if there are impediments to the transmission, the appropriate destination for the goods considered private. In order to promote discussions about the sharing of digitally stored goods, without, however, exhausting the theme, this is justified not only by the immediate need to reduce disputes brought to the appreciation of the judicial machine, already so overloaded, but also by the lack of direction of judges regarding decisions related to digital inheritance, given the lack of specific legal regulations. Presented as a viable and necessary solution, however, lacking popular acceptance, succession planning occurs as a mechanism for strengthening private autonomy, insofar as it simultaneously preserves the interests of the author of the inheritance and the heirs of this beneficiaries and, once inserted, respecting individual cultural notions, can produce effects of a legal and, above all, family effects.