Who inherits your iTunes
library?
Why your digital books and
music may go to the grave
Aug. 23, 2012, 4:57 p.m.
EDT
By Quentin Fottrell
Many of us will accumulate
vast libraries of digital books and music over the course of our lifetimes. But
when we die, our collections of words and music may expire with us.
Someone who owned 10,000
hardcover books and the same number of vinyl records could bequeath them to
descendants, but legal experts say passing on iTunes and Kindle libraries would
be much more complicated.
And one’s heirs stand to
lose huge sums of money. “I find it hard to imagine a situation where a family
would be OK with losing a collection of 10,000 books and songs,” says Evan
Carroll, co-author of “Your Digital Afterlife.” “Legally dividing one account
among several heirs would also be extremely difficult.”
Part of the problem is
that with digital content, one doesn’t have the same rights as with print books
and CDs. Customers own a license to use the digital files—but they don’t
actually own them.
Apple and Amazon.com grant
“nontransferable” rights to use content, so if you buy the complete works of
the Beatles on iTunes, you cannot give the White Album to your son and Abbey
Road to your daughter.
According to Amazon’s
terms of use, “You do not acquire any ownership rights in the software or music
content.” Apple limits the use of digital files to Apple devices used by the
account holder.
“That account is an asset
and something of value,” says Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss, an estate planning
attorney at Fein, Such, Kahn & Shepard in Parsippany, N.J.
But can it be passed on to
one’s heirs?
Most digital content
exists in a legal black hole. “The law is light years away from catching up
with the types of assets we have in the 21st Century,” says Wheatley-Liss. In
recent years, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Indiana, Oklahoma and Idaho passed
laws to allow executors and relatives access to email and social networking
accounts of those who’ve died, but the regulations don’t cover digital files
purchased.
Apple and Amazon did not respond
to requests for comment.
There are still few legal
and practical ways to inherit e-books and digital music, experts say. And at
least one lawyer has a plan to capitalize on what may become be a burgeoning
market. David Goldman, a lawyer in Jacksonville, says he will next month launch
software, DapTrust, to help estate planners create a legal trust for their
clients’ online accounts that hold music, e-books and movies. “With traditional
estate planning and wills, there’s no way to give the right to someone to
access this kind of information after you’re gone,” he says.
Here’s how it works:
Goldman will sell his software for $150 directly to estate planners to store
and manage digital accounts and passwords. And, while there are other online
safe-deposit boxes like AssetLock and ExecutorSource that already do that,
Goldman says his software contains instructions to create a legal trust for
accounts. “Having access to digital content and having the legal right to use
it are two totally different things,” he says.
The simpler alternative is
to just use your loved one’s devices and accounts after they’re gone—as long as
you have the right passwords.
Chester Jankowski, a New
York-based technology consultant, says he’d look for a way to get around the
licensing code written into his 15,000 digital files. “Anyone who was
tech-savvy could probably find a way to transfer those files onto their
computer—without ending up in Guantanamo,” he says. But experts say there
should be an easier solution, and a way such content can be transferred to
another’s account or divided between several people. “We need to reform and
update intellectual-property law,” says Dazza Greenwood, lecturer and
researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.
Technology pros say the
need for such reform is only going to become more pressing. “A significant
portion of our assets is now digital,” Carroll says. U.S. consumers spend
nearly $30 on e-books and MP3 files every month, or $360 a year, according to
e-commerce company Bango. Apple alone has sold 300 million iPods and 84 million
iPads since their launches. Amazon doesn’t release sales figures for the Kindle
Fire, but analysts estimate it has nearly a quarter of the U.S. tablet market.
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