On The Inheritance Problem Of The Digital Heritage

With the increasing popularity of Internet, digital technologies gradually change people’s way of life. Digital properties, such as QQ, MSN, email, Facebook, microblog and online shop accounts, etc. gradually come into people’s life. There is still no clear answers whether those virtual property that have been consuming a lot of time, energy, and even money could be inherited by our relativities as the real properties do after our death. Due to the fact that Internet has gained popularity in our country for a short time and the majority of the network users are young, the people has not been paying much attention to the issues like and inherit digital property protection and inheriting. Although it would appear to be immature to discuss the problems of digital property’s inheritance, such discussion do have a lot of exploratory value and pragmatic significance.This thesis consists of six parts:The first part mainly introduces the background, the significance, the innovative points and the researching method of the thesis. It also covers research status both in China and in foreign countries.Begins with the concept of digital heritage, the second part analyzes the characteristics and types of digital inheritance, and introduces some example cases of digital inheritance. It expounds the necessity of digital inheritance from these three aspects respectively.The third part mainly introduces the present status of digital inheritance. It analyzes value and attributes of digital heritage, points out primary problems in inheriting digital inheritance nowadays, and illustrates different perspectives of legal professionals on inheriting digital inheritance.The fourth part mainly introduces the methods of inheriting digital inheritance. It begins by systematically summarizing and analyzing theories and practices of inheriting personal digital inheritance, in the hope that it could think through methods of inheriting personal digital inheritance in China from the leading edge of relevant domestic and foreign researches. It also proposes some constructive suggestions based on relevant domestic and foreign approaches in inheriting digital inheritance, in order to enhance individual’s awareness in digital inheritance protection, so that the common social problem of how to inherit the digital inheritance could be solved.The fifth part is investigation and analysis of inheriting digital inheritance. In order to get a thorough understanding of the issue of inheriting digital inheritance and to gather more samples for the paper, this investigation includes all Internet users, mainly including how to treat digital property, digital property and personal privacy, and digital heritage protection methods, etc.The last part is the epilogue. It summarizes the whole thesis.