IntroductionIntroduction. The digitalization of property turnover and the development of special legal regimes have increased the need for precise differentiation of digital rights and related digital property phenomena. This issue is particularly important where legal qualifications affect inheritance, collateral, foreclosure, and judicial protection.PurposePurpose. The study aims to clarify the limits of Article 141.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and to identify the criteria that make it possible to distinguish digital rights from other digital property phenomena. The focus is not on digital assets in general, but only on those proprietary rights that are expressly recognized by law as digital and exist within an information system that meets the established legal requirements. An additional objective of the study is to examine whether the current framework is suitable for application in inheritance, pledge, enforcement against assets, and judicial protection, that is, in those areas where legal title must be transformed into a technically executable action within the system.Materials and methodsMaterials and methods. The research is based on a combination of formal legal, systemic, doctrinal, and law-enforcement methods. It analyzes the provisions of civil, financial, tax, and procedural legislation governing digital rights, utility digital rights, digital financial assets, digital currency, and the digital ruble. The study also relies on doctrinal works by Russian and foreign authors, as well as judicial acts that make it possible to assess the influence of digital infrastructure on the exercise and protection of proprietary rights.ResultsResults. It is established that Article 141.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation does not create a universal category of digital property, but rather establishes a special legal form for the existence of certain proprietary rights. A four-element criterion for qualifying a right as a digital right is proposed; it includes express recognition of the right by law, the presence of proprietary legal content, structural linkage to an information system, and the legal significance of the system record. It is shown that the legal role of the record is not uniform: in the general model, it legitimizes the holder and the mode of disposition, whereas in special regimes it may form part of the legal structure of the creation, transfer, or encumbrance of the right.ConclusionsConclusions. The study concludes that Russian regulation in this sphere is sectoral in character and that the principal difficulties arise not at the level of definitions, but in the mechanisms of hereditary succession, the recording of pledges, the correction of defective records, enforcement proceedings, and judicial compulsion to alter a record within the system. The need is substantiated for targeted legislative modernization without an expansive interpretation of the concept of digital rights and without conflating digital rights with digital currency, the digital ruble, non-cash funds, or uncertificated securities.
