Debates in Private Law: Should the law recognise property rights in digital files?
Date: November 20, 2025 (Thursday)
Time: 5:00pm – 6:30pm
Venue: Academic Conference Room, 11/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, The University of Hong Kong
This event is co-organized by the Centre for Private Law & the Law and Technology Centre of the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
Speaker:
Kelvin Low, Professor & Director of the Centre for Private Law, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
Dave Michels, Researcher with the Cloud Legal Project, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London
Should digital files attract property rights? And should parties be able to call upon proprietary remedies in case of disputes over access to digital files? For example, suppose Alice stores her CV as a Word document on her work laptop. The employer then fires Alice and takes the laptop. Should Alice be able to sue her former employer for the return of the digital file, by calling upon a proprietary remedy like the tort of conversion? Or suppose the employer becomes insolvent. Should Alice be able to retrieve the file from the work laptop and withdraw it from the insolvent company’s assets, before the administrators sell it?
These questions form part of a broader global debate on ‘digital assets’. Similar issues have arisen before commercial courts in the US, UK, Hong Kong, and Singapore, often in relation to crypto-currencies like Bitcoin. The Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill will soon become law in England and Wales. It introduces a new ‘third category’ of things beyond things in possession and things in action, the traditional categories of personal property under the common law. Could this ‘third category’ include the humble digital file? Should it?
In 2022, writing in the Cambridge Law Journal with co-author Christopher Millard, Dave Michels argued that digital files are virtual objects which display the key characteristics that make things a good fit for property rights. He therefore proposes that the law protect digital assets as new things that can attract property rights. In 2024, writing in Law, Innovation and Technology with co-author Daniel Seng, Kelvin Low responded, arguing that digital files do not exist in any sense that is relevant under property law. Just as all that glitters is not gold, digital files – though valuable – are not things that should attract property rights.
Kelvin F.K. Low read law at the National University of Singapore and Oxford University. Before his current appointment at the University of Hong Kong, he held previous appointments at National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University, and City University of Hong Kong. His research interest spans the field of private law but with a particular interest in property, broadly defined. He has published internationally with leading journals such as the American Journal of Comparative Law, the International & Comparative Law Quarterly, Legal Studies, Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, the Law Quarterly Review, the Melbourne University Law Review, and the Modern Law Review. He is a co-author (together with Michael Bridge, Louise Gullifer, and Gerard McMeel) of the 2nd and 3rd editions of The Law of Personal Property, and co-author (together with Tang Hang Wu) of the 3rd and 4th editions of Tan Sook Yee’s Principles of Singapore Land Law. His works have been cited by the courts in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong SAR, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore as well as law commissions and law reform bodies in Australia, England and Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and Singapore.
Dave Michels is a researcher with the Cloud Legal Project at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London, and a Guest Teacher at the London School of Economics. He has published articles covering cloud and IT services in leading US, UK, and European law journals and is a co-author of the Cloud Computing Law book (OUP, 2021). He is currently pursuing a PhD on the topic of property rights in digital assets. His research on digital assets has been cited by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Singapore Court of Appeal, and the Law Commission of England and Wales. He has received research funding from Microsoft and Broadcom and was awarded an Outstanding Early Career Visiting Fellowship by The University of Hong Kong in 2025 (Find out more about the Fellowship programme here: https://www.law.hku.hk/research/hku-law-outstanding-early-career-visiting-fellowship-scheme/.)
Moderator: Benjamin Chen, Associate Professor & Director of the Law and Technology Centre, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
To register, please visit https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=103754.
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