Remove requirement for file upload for digital product

As we use a third party for our (unique per client) download files after purchasing a digital product, we would like to disable the requirement for uploading a file for digital products. We could instead provide a dummy text value if it is too hard to bypass the downloads table completely. But preferably we wouldn’t like to litter our file system with dummy files just to make digital products work.

I have been searching the source code to find where the requirement is set for a digital product to contain at least one download. I think the key to a suitable solution must be here, but I cannot find where this requirement is set. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.

Does anybody know where validation of the backend input takes place?