Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Dividing Digital Assets In Divorce?
An anonymous reader writes "I am a long time Slashdotter and currently find myself in the beginning of a divorce process. How have you dealt with dispersing of shared data, accounts and things online in such a situation? Domains, hosting, email, sensitive data backups and social media are just a few examples."
It depends on whether there was a marriage contract or not, and also when the assets (for example, the domain names) were acquired, as well as their purpose.
Domains that were acquired as a hobby and have no pecuniary value go with the person who is listed on the whois, unless that person was listed just for conveniences' sake - then they should go to the real owner.
Domains that have a financial value that were acquired before the marriage generally stay with the person who brought them into the marriage, same as other assets generally (YMMV, of course, depending on local laws, etc).
Domains that are worth $$$ that were acquired during the marriage in the course of business stay with the business. So, it's all about how each party is compensated for their contribution to the business. Does one party buy the other out, or just get a share of the business itself if it's a multi-million-buck operation (not likely)?
WARNING: Many places have special laws concerning copyrights staying with the original author even if the material was created during a marriage (it does not become part of the "partnership" assets)! The question rarely came up in previous decades, so most divorce lawyers are totally clueless about this.
However, I was the computer user in my first marriage, now I'm married to a 'Net-savvy woman.
We still have have our own email, iTunes, and various web accounts. However, we are starting to share online backups, etc.
As others have said:
1. Contact an attorney
2. Don't delete anything
3. Make backups of stuff you care about in case the other person doesn't follow rule #2.
Suggestions:
1. Bank accounts and other related items with actual assets - these will be divided according to your divorce agreement.
2. Non-shared personal accounts (e.g. email, Amazon, slashdot) should remain personal accounts.
3. Shared email accounts - the divorce agreement should indicate that these are to be deleted (unless it's part of a business).
4. Online backups - don't delete them, but at least disable backing up of their stuff, as it may contain private attorney-client communication - and don't look at it! I would propose that the person who originally signed up and paid for the account remain the owner, and give the other party a copy of common and shared data before removing the other party's data at an agreed time.
5. iTunes accounts - if they are associated with an individual's email, then these should remain with the individual. If it's a shared account, then it will have to assigned based on the divorce agreement. It may be that nobody gets any of it, and that it's all deleted.
6. Social Media - you will probably want to drop or remove the other party from your social media sites. At the very least, "banish" them (and any of their close friends) to a group that minimizes what they can see. These really shouldn't be shared accounts, and should belong to an individual. If you share a twitter account, I suggest deleting it unless it's used as part of a business (in which case it has value, and thus needs to be divided according to the divorce agreement).
7. Domains - these are usually individual, or business related. Something truly shared (e.g. smithfamily.com) should go with whoever bought it or offered to the other party if they intend to keep that name (e.g. Smith in this case). I know it sounds weird.
Virtually everything that is really important to you should be spelled out in the divorce agreement. Minor division of assets can be negotiated outside of that (e.g. she took the physical photos, I kept all the negatives).