Abstract: Digital rights, a new type of rights, are vulnerable to infringement. A society ruled by law is based on rights, which occupy a central axis position in the triangle of “rights-powers-obligations”. To protect digital rights from being infringed, in essence, is to balance digital rights, including the balance between rights, rights and powers, and between rights and obligations. Balanced digital rights involve the employment of the rightness of rights, the interest size of rights, and the rights protection of the weak as standards to achieve a balance between rights, including a balance between the right to privacy and the right to know, and a balance between the right to be forgotten and the right to know. The balance between digital rights and digital obligations involves the employment of the complementary relationship between rights and obligations, the subordination of obligations to rights, and the performance of obligations as the standards to achieve a balance between rights and obligations. It also involves the setting of digital obligations according to digital rights, especially the setting of special digital obligations for special digital rights that are vulnerable to infringement, so as to ensure the performance of the obligations to protect the rights of digital subjects to self-determination. The balance between digital rights and digital powers is, with power being the guarantee of rights, powers being restricted by rights, and preventing the blind expansion of digital powers as the standards, to achieve the balance between rights and powers, to sustain the “amount” of the balance of rights and powers required by law, and to curb the hidden infringement of digital powers to digital rights. Balanced digital rights enable the realization of citizens’ digital rights while preventing their digital obligations burden from being arbitrarily aggravated, ensuring that digital powers are fully exercised while preventing anyone from exceeding their power and that the relationship between digital rights, between digital powers, and between digital obligations is clear in legal theory, reasonable in the legal provision, and sufficient in law enforcement.

 

Keywords: Number; Digital Rights; Digital Powers; Digital Obligations; Right Standard

 

*About the author: Xu Ming, professor of the School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan).