Introduction
It cannot be denied that the development of the Internet has radically changed the way we live. Interpersonal relations, shopping, books, and recently, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, also offices, university classes and cultural institutions (e.g. museums, art galleries) have been transported to the virtual level. Moreover, a large part of the information produced in the world is born digital and comes in a wide variety of formats: text, database, audio, film, image.
Currently, we are dealing with a situation where intensive technological development not only creates the possibility of protecting and preserving cultural heritage for the future, using a process of digitization of its objects, but also creates such heritage itself (digital heritage). The Internet has become a place of creation of content in a dematerialized form, such as photography, computer games, net art and various forms of expression, e.g. blogs and vlogs. These works undoubtedly belong to the contemporary cultural heritage. Nevertheless, they do not always enjoy the legal protection, which is provided for that cultural heritage, due to the wording of legal provisions. Often even digital heritage is a kind of novelty for a given country and thus a challenge to its legal system of cultural heritage protection. The most recent legacy, paradoxically to its young age, is therefore the most troublesome.
In the case of digital heritage, one should think outside the box, because newly emerging technical solutions require modern legal solutions aimed at the protection of abstract matter, without a material carrier. The aim of this article is to present the concept of digital heritage and it is still widening scope, as a legal challenge, by analyzing the currently existing legal forms of its protection.
Digital Cultural Heritage
In its broadest sense, heritage is our legacy, containing everything that is inherited from the past, created in the present and passed for future generations. Individual UNESCO conventions adequately restrict this concept and divide it into, i.a., “cultural heritage, natural heritage, underwater cultural and natural heritage or intangible cultural heritage.”