Cultural heritage carries the historical memory of thousands of years of Chinese civilization's continuous inheritance, and is a vivid witness to the spiritual context of the Chinese nation. In the current era of surging digital technology, digitalization of cultural heritage has become one of the important ways to protect and utilize cultural heritage. At the same time, under the strategic background of comprehensively governing the country by law, strengthening the legal protection of digital cultural heritage has significant practical significance and far-reaching historical value for building a systematic protection barrier for cultural heritage and realizing the universal sharing of Chinese cultural heritage. Compared to traditional methods of protecting cultural heritage, digital technology has unique innovative advantages. On the one hand, digitalization of cultural heritage can achieve permanent preservation of cultural heritage, effectively avoiding damage and loss caused by natural and human factors; On the other hand, through various digital cultural heritages, people can gain a deeper understanding of the traditional humanistic values behind cultural heritage and enhance cultural confidence. In recent years, digital cultural heritage projects such as "Digital Great Wall," "Digital Dunhuang," "Digital Beijing Axis," and "Black Myth: Wukong" have played an important leading role in cultural dissemination and tourism development. For example, the Beijing Central Axis was successfully applied for World Heritage in 2024, and the "Digital Central Axis · Small Universe" project is an important achievement of digitalization in assisting the application of Beijing Central Axis for World Heritage. Through multi-level and multi-dimensional digital presentation, this project not only realizes the digital preservation of the central axis building group, but more importantly, systematically manages and disseminates the historical evolution and cultural connotation of the central axis through digital means, providing valuable reference experience for the digital protection of other cultural heritage. The exploration of legal protection for digital cultural heritage is gradually unfolding in the 21st century, and the exploration of legal protection for digital cultural heritage is gradually unfolding globally. In 2002, UNESCO drafted the "Guidelines for the Protection of Digital Cultural Heritage" and the "Guidelines for the Protection of Digital Cultural Heritage". In 2019, the "Digital Single Market Copyright Directive" was passed by a high vote in the European Council. Overall, China has fully absorbed advanced concepts and basic principles of international cultural heritage protection, and has initially formed a legal framework for cultural heritage protection. In addition, as a major cultural heritage country, China has always attached great importance to the legal interpretation and specific implementation policy opinions of digital cultural heritage. In 2003, the Supreme People's Court's "Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Cases Involving Computer Network Copyright Disputes" extended the scope of copyright to the digital form of works, providing a legal interpretation basis for the protection of copyright of digital works. In 2021, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage", which pointed out the need to digitize the archives of intangible cultural heritage. In 2019, the National Cutural Heritage Administration issued the Operation Guidelines on Copyright, Trademark Rights and Brand Authorization of Museum Collection Resources (for Trial Implementation), giving the museum the right to re create the collection resources through photography, video and other means, and defining its corresponding copyright. In 2022, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Implementation of the National Cultural Digitalization Strategy", which made key arrangements for the strategic path of digital cultural heritage. The newly revised Cultural Relics Protection Law will come into effect on March 1st this year, which further strengthens the attention to cultural relics in museums and other collections, and provides a principled legal basis for the use of digital technology to deeply explore the value of cultural heritage. The digital wave triggered by information technology has brought enormous opportunities for the inheritance of cultural heritage and the promotion of excellent culture, but has also given rise to a series of new legal challenges. In the context of comprehensively promoting the rule of law, it has become urgent to deeply examine and reflect on the legal protection difficulties faced in the digital practice of cultural heritage, explore and improve corresponding legal norms, and provide solid legal system guarantees for the digital development of cultural heritage. Legislation should take into account the dual attributes of digital cultural heritage. Currently, the laws and regulations for the protection of digital cultural heritage in China are not yet perfect, and the dual attributes of public and private rights of digital cultural heritage make its legal protection face many difficult problems. From the perspective of public power, digital cultural heritage, as an expression of human cultural information interests, carries social public cultural values and has significant social public power attributes. From a private rights perspective, digitalization of cultural heritage refers to the use of digital technology to record, organize, or innovate cultural heritage. This intellectual achievement has originality and should be protected by copyright law. To balance the dual attributes of digital cultural heritage and enhance the targeted protection of digital cultural heritage, the relevant legal system can be improved from the following two aspects in the future: firstly, starting from the national legislative level, targeted legislative work can be promoted around the goal of effectively utilizing cultural relics. The relevant content of the Cultural Relics Protection Law provides principled guidance and norms for the protection of digital cultural heritage. Its Article 10 stipulates: "To implement the work requirements of protection first, strengthen management, excavate value, effectively utilize, and make cultural relics live." Specifically, the following content needs to be improved: first, clarify and refine the civil liability for infringement of digital cultural heritage, clarify the constituent elements and sentencing standards of relevant criminal law charges, and improve the administrative law relief legal system, such as administrative reconsideration and administrative mediation mechanisms; Secondly, reasonable restrictions should be imposed on the copyright protection of digital cultural heritage, and the scope of reasonable use of digital achievements of cultural heritage should be appropriately expanded to increase the situation of reasonable use, and a compulsory licensing system should be established to promote the widespread dissemination and sharing of cultural heritage while protecting the legitimate rights and interests of rights holders. Secondly, from the perspective of human civilization exchange and mutual learning, we will refine the relevant content of Article 20 of the Cultural Relics Protection Law on international exchange and cooperation, promote human civilization exchange and mutual learning, refer to the latest practical progress of international cultural heritage digital rights claims, based on China's national conditions, and learn from the "knowledge sharing license agreement" system. This system was first proposed by the United States in 2001 and applies to the copyright of cultural and creative works in the public domain. In 2016, the 3D scan data of Nefertiti's bust, a representative collection of the New Museum in Berlin, Germany, was made public online by two artists, triggering a lawsuit. Eventually, the court ruled in favor of encouraging public sharing while restricting commercial applications. This case provides useful reference for the legal protection of digital achievements of cultural heritage in China. The legal protection system for cultural heritage is an organic component of the modern national legal system, and the legal protection of digital cultural heritage is an important part of the construction of a rule of law China. To achieve the rule of law in the protection of digital cultural heritage, it is necessary to continuously improve relevant legal mechanisms to safeguard the inheritance and development of cultural heritage, and to make Chinese excellent traditional culture shine even more brilliantly in the new era. (New Society)