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Delaware Enacts Law Allowing Heirs To Access Digital Assets of Deceased

Posted by Unknown on from the facebook-after-death dept.

An anonymous reader writes Ars reports: "Delaware has become the first state in the U.S .to enact a law that ensures families' rights to access the digital assets of loved ones during incapacitation or after death." In other states, the social media accounts and email of people who die also die with them since the companies hosting those accounts are not obligated to transfer access even to the heirs of the deceased. In Delaware, however, this is no longer the case. The article notes that even if the deceased was a resident of another state, if his/her will is governed by Delaware law, his/her heirs will be allowed to avail of the new law and gain access to all digital assets of the deceased.

16 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Or by penguinoid · · Score: 2

    You could just give them your password.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    1. Re:Or by ruir · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There are too many implications. While I am trustworthy of my family, and my father could have robbed me blind and fuck up all my life, I know he would not do that. However, it is not the first and last case where some old people found a new love, and the family takes away all their assets. The ideal is to leave the password, or better yet, some means of changing it, in a sealed enveloped, together with your will. (better some means of changing it, because in the improbable case of foul play, you will know it). Nevertheless, the inheritance of accounts, specially of accounts that control movies or music go against the desire of the industry or selling, reselling and reselling again the same movies and musics to every citizen.

    2. Re:Or by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ... and the keys to your house, car, number of your credit cards and access to the storage-box at your bank.

      Its not like you have anything to hide or that some heirs simply can't be trusted ...

    3. Re:Or by Jiro · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Some people have already replied that you might not be able to trust everyone with your password, but that's only one of the problems. The other problem is that although your heirs may be able to physically read the password from your sealed envelope and type it in, just typing in the password won't make your access authorized. Trying to download the deceased's ebooks, music, or apps would be piracy, and even just revealing that you accessed the account (by trying to use the information in it in a billing dispute, or to take it to the press if it is whistleblowing in nature, for instance) could subject you to a selectively prosecuted hacking charge in court to get you to shut up.

      And even if you don't actually get in legal trouble for accessing the account, companies could use the illegal nature of the access to refuse to do things that they would do upon request of the account owner, such as closing the account (if you want it closed), leaving the account open (if you want to keep paying for it), or restoring or sending you a backup.

    4. Re:Or by turning+in+circles · · Score: 2

      It's Delaware. Give it a few years and there will probably be a form such as an electronic power of attorney, akin to a medical durable power of attorney, that will explain to the next of kin the rights and limitations of what can be passed on, and how to access the information. Probably other states will follow suit as soon as the wrinkles are worked out (and it is made clear what cloud-stored information is inheritable and what is not).

      --
      Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
    5. Re: Or by mrchaotica · · Score: 2

      How about you go learn about the First Sale doctrine and fuck off? There are a lot of products (not services) that shouldn't "magically" stop being products just because they're "on a computer!"

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  2. Good for music, movies and ebooks by Camembert · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't care much for the social media accounts, but it is good that bought ebooks, music and movies should be accessible to next of kin, just like their physical counterparts are.

    1. Re:Good for music, movies and ebooks by ruir · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem is that unless you have physical possession of the files in a non-gardenwalled environment, you probably do not own them, but you are just renting them.

    2. Re:Good for music, movies and ebooks by hawkinspeter · · Score: 4, Informative

      Unfortunately, that's not the case. Bruce Willis raised a fuss a while ago about not being able to leave his iTunes music collection to his children. The Ts and Cs state that the license to listen to the music is strictly non-transferrable. (He should have just "pirated" it instead).

      --
      You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
    3. Re:Good for music, movies and ebooks by sherr · · Score: 2

      Except that contracts do not superced the law, so if it becomes law that your heirs get your digital property then that overrules anything in anyone's Ts and Cs.

  3. My porn collection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why would I want my porn collection going to my wife? I'd much rather give it to my girlfriend. After all, we bought most of it together.

  4. Why death? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So transferring digital goods on death is now allowed.

    How about when I'm still alive?

    1. Re:Why death? by pubwvj · · Score: 2

      Sorry, no, we'll have to kill you first.

  5. My will reads by Renozuken · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And to billy I leave my steam account which has a few good games and a couple hundred games I've never played...

  6. Interesting... by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

    This has interesting implications for the entire industry. Mainly because they'll now need to restructure their systems to deal with moving an asset from one account to another as well as deal with when one user ends up with 2 of the same media. It may seem simple from the outside but if they've never prepared for these problems it could be a major headache for them now.

  7. Re:Sale by another name by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2

    Chances are it was sold to them with a buy button and the description of the product was the product not the licence to the product. Chances are the payment was one time payment for permanent access to the copy. This is the definition of a sale. Calling a sale by another name does not change it from being a sale.

    Unfortunately, it does. You also don't usually buy software. It may look like a sale and even be called a sale, but you are accepting a license to use the product in a manner that the owner of the product deems appropriate. If it were a true sale, you would be the owner and thus could do with it whatever you want. Also, for a sale to take place, there has to be an exchange money for tangible property. Electronic distribution has already been determined by the courts not to be tangible personal property, so again, there cannot be a sale.

    In reality, it makes no difference what the transaction is called, it is all about who retains ownership and with electronic content, it is not, usually, the person paying for it.