Investing in Digital Rights Using Investment Platforms: Peculiarities of Legal Relations

The paper analyzes the specifics of the investment legal relationship that develops when investing in digital rights using an investment platform. The basis of the emerging legal relations is the interest, will and will of its participants. However, unlike traditional legal relations that develop outside the digital environment, these relations are based on a different more complex composition of legal facts, specific objects, non-specific subjects, which determines the uncharacteristic signs of emerging legal relations. Analysis of the legislation shows that there are restrictions in the use of digital rights in investment activities—they can only be considered as an object of investment. Research of scientific literature testifies to the debatable nature of a number of issues regarding the understanding of digital law, its content, features, and the allocation of certain types. In the course of the study, it is stated that currently only two types of digital law can act as investment objects: digital financial assets and utilitarian digital rights. The analysis of normative and doctrinal sources made it possible to draw a conclusion regarding the differences between these digital rights, which consist in the content of the property right underlying them and the object of this right to which the interest of investment participants is directed. The specifics of the investment legal relationship arising with respect to digital rights using the investment platform are formed by a complex composition of subjects. It is proved that the emergence of this legal relationship requires the coordinated will and will of two subjects—the investor and the person attracting investments. However, the development of the designated legal relationship, its dynamics, requires the will and will of another entity—the operator of the investment platform. Thus, in the investment legal relationship under study, two groups of subjects should be distinguished—traditional (the investor and the person attracting investments) and specific (the operator of the information platform). The presence of a complex composition of subjects forms a two-level structure of the emerging investment legal relationship for investing in digital rights using investment platforms. To conclude a transaction, first of all, the coordinated will of the investor and the person attracting investments is necessary. The interaction of these entities constitutes the first level of the investment legal relationship arising with respect to digital rights. In order to exercise their subjective civil rights, the investor and the person attracting investments enter into contractual relations with the operator of the investment platform, which forms the second level of investment legal relations for investing in digital rights. The specifics of the investment legal relationship, which develops with respect to investing in digital rights, is also a special composition of legal facts. The specified composition generates a complex two-level structure of the investment legal relationship. The first level is based on the will of the investor and the person attracting investments, and the legal fact is the investment contract. The second level is based on the will of the investor, the person attracting investments and the operator of the investment platform, and the legal fact that generates legal relations is the contract for the provision of services to attract investments or to assist in investing.