The pledge of digital rights in Russian civil law: issues of ensuring the principles of speciality and publicity, as well as forced enforcement under the controlling role of information system operators (ISOs)

This study is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the legal nature of digital rights as a subject of pledge relations, formed in the context of the all-encompassing digitalization of property turnover. The subject of the research is the legal characterization of digital rights in the context of their use as an object of pledge, as well as the specifics of their turnover and the securing of obligation performance in the digital environment. The object of the study is the current regulatory legal framework governing the institution of the pledge of digital rights, including issues of establishment, accounting, and enforcement of encumbered digital rights within enforcement proceedings. The main task of the research is to identify and systematize key problems and gaps in the current civil legislation regulating the pledge of digital rights, as well as to formulate proposals aimed at creating a stable and transparent mechanism of pledge security within the digital economy. The purpose of the study is to conduct a comprehensive examination and resolution of problematic issues related to the legal nature, establishment, registration, and enforcement of the pledge of digital rights under Russian civil law, as well as to develop theoretically grounded proposals for improving the corresponding legal regulation. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the transformation of the principles of specificity and publicity of the pledge of digital rights, as well as the role of information system operators (ISOs) as the actual administrators of pledge encumbrances. The methodological basis of the study is founded on the interrelated application of general scientific, specialized scientific (comparative legal and formal-legal), and practical (modeling) research methods. The scientific novelty of the work lies in substantiating the position of the independent legal nature of digital rights, the value of which is formed not only through the «obligation content» but also through technological control over the «digital record». The author substantiates the necessity of creating a unified public register of digital rights to ensure transparency and stability of digital turnover, to define the status of information system operators (ISOs), as well as the introduction of elements of a controlled electronic records system (CERs). The study demonstrates that the current regulatory legal framework does not provide mechanisms for the public identification of digital rights, which prevents the enforcement of pledges of digital rights. Furthermore, the need for a special procedure for monetizing digital rights in enforcement proceedings is argued, involving the formalization of rules for their valuation and the procedures for their implementation.