On the question of whether digital rights should be introduced into the Civil Code

Introduction: on October 1, 2019, Article 141.1 “Digital rights” was introduced into the Civil Code by Federal law No. 34-FZ of 18.03.2019. Since January 1, 2020, the so-called utilitarian digital rights have been introduced into civil circulation. In connection with such significant changes in the objects of civil rights, there appears a need for a thorough analysis of innovations in terms of their feasibility and necessity. The tasks set by the author correspond to the goal of analyzing the legal regime of digital rights: to conduct a comparative analysis of securities, primarily non-documentary ones, and digital rights. Methods: the methodological framework for the research is a set of methods of scientific knowledge, among which the main ones are the methods of historicism, systematicity, analysis, and comparison. Results: the paper examines the category “digital rights” introduced in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, as well as the special legislation regulating the utilitarian digital rights. The comparison of non-documentary securities and utilitarian digital rights is made. The author studied the property rights that might be the content of digital rights, as well as the specifics of fixing digital rights in comparison with non-documentary securities, and the specifics of transferring digital rights from one person to another. A new non-documentary non-emissive security that mediates the circulation of digital rights - the digital certificate - is studied. Conclusions: the paper substantiates the inexpediency of introducing such an object of civil rights as digital rights into the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The conclusion is made about the excessive complexity of the structure of digital rights and digital certificates, as well as the difficulties of using them for the investment purposes.