Chen Jing, Associate Professor, School of Arts, Nanjing University
We create digital content in the virtual space, including various documents on computer, text messages, photos and videos released on social media, personal emails, all kinds of paid services, e-books and videos bought, performance and tokens in standalone or online games, publications and something for sale on business platforms, music and works of art on personal websites, etc.All of these have been part of personal assets that can be traded.In this sense, anything that is usable (with the right of use) and exists in digital format can be referred to as "digital assets". While most people are aware of how important digital content is to them, not everyone is aware that it counts as an asset, and very few are aware of the need to plan for such assets after their death.
Currently, most Internet services rely on user data, and the access to that data is inherently fraught with inequities and unspoken rules -- for example, user data is often licensed to service providers without users' knowledge, or this happens even with users’ knowledge,and users themselves do not own their data. In addition, some data is stored in a specific application, and exporting or backing up files often requires the same application or runtime environment. Therefore, even if the data has been saved or backed up locally, it cannot be opened or used again at will. Furthermore, the disappearance of user data due to the limitation of data storage space provided by service providersor the termination of service by service providersmay result in the inability of users to obtain or permanently store such data. There is alsothe vast amount of data that users don't want to release because it's personal, or they don’t want suchdata to existas digital zombiesafter their death. How should we deal with such digital content? Can users have the right to delete data when corporate monopolies on data are prevalent?
As death is inevitable, how to select the content that needs to be preserved, delete or burn the content that they do not want to be preserved or inherited, and how to have such content inherited or reused have become necessary considerations when making a will or arranging inheritance.
When we consider digital legacies from the perspective of lasting preservation, we’ll find a large number of historical documents and materials archived in digital form were also personal legacies in their initial state in a narrow sense, but with the passage of time, they have become public legacies due to their historic significance.
In recent years, with the rise of public historiography and the emergence of oral history and personal/family materials, personal legacies (such as personal image history, family photo albums and anonymous images) have begun to be discussed as public heritage, i.e.personal legacies have been regardedas potential public heritage and gradually gained attention. Theremay be the analysis of emails, microblogposts and chatsbefore long. The latter, however, is no easier to obtain than the former. How to think about digital legaciesof the future is actually a difficult proposition, but it also teaches us to consider from a different angle: we should well manage our present digital assets and plan for digital legacies, which will not only involve individuals, but also relate to the future of history.
Published on May 26, 2022