The meaning of heritage has historically been changing and the most recent discussions about it are due to new technologies, digital transformation and the Internet.
We are talking about the concept of digital heritage. Do you know what digital heritage is and what it encompasses? What is its importance for individuals and companies?
Understanding these and other related issues has become crucial and has essential and diverse ramifications, which is why we are going to talk a little about this topic today.
What is digital heritage?
Quite briefly, digital heritage is the set of everything that constitutes digital assets and which, in turn, are the intangible assets existing in digital media, whether online or offline.
Seen in this way, it is a somewhat vague definition, both because it expands the meaning of the word heritage, and because this expansion can be quite extensive.
Until the 18th century, the word heritage was used only in reference to what was material and tangible, such as a work of art, a property or even the animals of a herd. But it was at that time and with the cultural evolution seen on the European continent, that the preservation of cultural heritage began to be talked about and that, if initially only limited to objects that represented culture, it gradually began to encompass conceptual and abstract aspects.
Thus, it is not today that it is said that the cultural heritage of a nation comprises its popular festivals, its music and dances, folklore, gastronomy and that in the case of Brazil, we can mention the carnival and samba, for example,
Samba as rhythm and musical expression is not material. No one has its possession, its exclusive right to use it, nor can anyone touch it as they do with an object.
Likewise, with the advent of computers, with the digital transformation and especially from of the Internet, which could have associated the concept of good, as an old, rare and expensive copy of a Bible, came to exist in digital media.
It is somewhat difficult to pin down the exact landmark when this occurred, but possibly from the moment companies started marketing the first software and operating systems and the almost immediate emergence of software piracy, giving monetary value to the issue.
Since then, a lot has changed. What has not changed is that to be considered digital heritage, the digital asset that integrates it, needs to have some value and that does not necessarily need to be quantifiable in financial terms, although generally and in most cases this link exists.
A typical example when the issue involves value, is the case of a social network account of a deceased individual and that the legal doctrine has considered as patrimony that will compose their digital heritage, although there is still no specific legislation
Stipulating a quantifiable value in this situation may be impossible, but for the family or possible heirs, there is a lot of value.
When we talk about companies and , therefore, legal entities, the concept also applies and there are a number of aspects that are part of their heritage or set of digital assets and that include both the most characteristic digital assets, as well as the most subtle:
- NFTs – in addition to companies with While their main business is based in other areas, but which have been profiting from NFTs, there are already companies that essentially survive on Non-Fungible Tokens;
- Cryptocurrencies – it is not uncommon for companies that already use the main cryptocurrencies – such as Bitcoin – in various commercial operations;
- Spreadsheets – spreadsheets containing important strategic information may be available on the company’s intranet or stored in the cloud;
- )Databases – databases with the most diverse information about the company, consisting of hosting servers not only for the websites to which they are associated, but for any online systems that the company has;
- Software and systems – the software industry is one of the fastest growing segments in the economy, for many years it has been represented among the largest companies of the world;
- Sites – all kinds of and sites (blog, institutional site, content site, forum, etc.) that a company creates and maintains, bring together content that is created by it and, like a book or a song, must be protected by copyright laws, in addition to the fact that which invariably has an associated database, which also represents a digital asset. Not to mention the cases in which the website is the main business of the company, like most social networks;
- E-books – an e-book except for the material difference, as well as the printed version, must be copyright protected and constitutes a form of heritage.
The list of possible contents that can be classified as digital goods and, therefore, make up the company’s assets, is not complete with everything that is possible, but it is sufficient as an example of the wide universe and that can grow as technology expands its horizons.
This is the case of blockchain technology and that favored the emergence of NFT’s, or virtual reality devices, the processing power and faster connections (eg 5G), which make experiences in the metaverse more real and which, in turn, is also an example of a digital good.
How important is the digital heritage of company?
In the same way as the patri On a material level, digital is one of the factors that represent the value that the company has in digital media, even if it cannot be expressed precisely in financial terms.
Think about any topic that interests you. When you search the search engines for different associated words, the first results observed refer to the sites that have the highest authority in this regard, according to the algorithms of Google or Microsoft Bing, or any other search engine.
Whether the videos on YouTube, blog posts, or articles on content sites that appear on Google’s first page, they all have a lot of value, it’s difficult to quantify it’s true, but whose managers invested a lot of work, time and money, to be there.
In addition to trying to measure how much is worth having one or more content appearing as a featured snippet, having hundreds of downloads of an e-book, or bringing thousands of visitors / month, the digital heritage is representative of what the company is, of the work it does, of the image it has built in the minds of its consumers and, mainly, of its digital reputation.
And as for this last factor , an important observation should be made: the digital heritage al impacts on digital reputation, but the opposite is also true.
A company that has built a bad digital reputation, because its service is not good, because the quality of its products / services is also not good , because the evaluations made on Google are bad, or for any other factors, it is expected that internet users consume less of their content, causing over time, that their authority decreases, even in spite of a great work of SEO and Digital Marketing .
Last, but not least and on the contrary, the digital heritage also consists of the database of its customers, information and administrative systems and which are essential for the functioning of the organization, the your service channels on the web (chat, website, helpdesk, etc), of your e-commerce.
Without these digital assets, profits, revenue, sales or even the survival of the company it would be possible? Even if so, what is the impact?
All of this, whatever else you can remember, to a greater or lesser degree, directly or indirectly, influences the company’s results and for that reason they are important assets.
Proof of how valuable all this can be, is that threats such as DDoS attacks, ransomware, phishing and data leakage are growing in worrying volumes, to name just the most common of digital threats.
From all we’ve seen, digital security is as essential as physical security. Let Americanas.com say that, due to the attack suffered on its e-commerce sites (Americanas, Shoptime, Submarino, Sou Barato) and AME digital wallet, it had losses of more than R$900 million and suffered a drop of 12% in market value.
But it’s not just a matter of taking care of a website’s security.
There are actions that seem more “harmless” and that can hide important threats, such as content plagiarism and the apparently less harmful web scraping, defended by many, but done without limits, can be as harmful as the case of Americanas.
Therefore , it is important that our legislators have the immediate discussion of specific legislation that protects the digital heritage and those that constitute it.
Associations, federations and civil society must unite around the creation of an agenda that aims to regulate and thus protect the digital heritage of people and companies, even in constitutional terms, since n Our Magna Carta was created at a time when the concept still did not make sense.
In addition, this is one of the questions that are part of broader discussions and that are closely related to the future of Internet and that only the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet and the LGPD are insufficient.
Conclusion
Like physical heritage, digital is important for people and companies, and it is necessary to develop awareness about, as well as regulate the issue.
