Who owns your music, your books, and even your website when you pass on? These things are digital property, and much digital property is still considered personal property. Personal property makes up one’s personal estate. Your heirs can inherit some of these things from you.
Not all digital property can be inherited.
Unlike CDs or paperbacks, which exist in material reality, mp3s and digital books do not. However, digital music and books don’t actually belong to whoever downloads them. Many platforms actually license music and other media for an individual’s use, and that individual’s only. This use doesn’t survive death. So, if your music library is all downloaded from online sources, your heirs may not be able to inherit it.
However, there are other types of digital property that can be inherited, like digital currency, websites, and other types of property. For example, digital books can’t be inherited if they’re licensed to an individual to read. However, the author and copyright owner of a digital book can bequeath the intellectual property, and heirs can inherit any proceeds from the book from online publishing platforms.
They’ll need to know what you actually have.
Anyone who has a lot of digital property should consult a local attorney about making an estate plan. Even if you wish to simply bequeath the property to your next of kin, a Tampa will and trust attorney knows what can be bequeathed and what can’t. With that being said, you should keep an inventory of what digital property you have. It would be a shame to have worked so hard on an app only to have it sit in the app store collecting money, but with no one collecting proceeds, or to have a bitcoin wallet sitting in cyberspace with no one to collect the money.
Likewise, if you have a website or some other social media that you regularly update that generates income or puts you in touch with the public, devise a way to make sure your heirs know about these. Chances are that you have more than one account on a social platform.
Online banks will allow you right of survivorship if you share an account with someone, but if you have an online account, let your heirs know.
They’ll need your usernames and passwords.
You should create a master list of your usernames and passwords so your heirs can access all of your accounts. It may be best to leave a hard copy of it where it can be found or to include it in your estate plan, rather than have one sitting on a cloud somewhere. If you keep a master list, be sure to update it regularly. A website or company won’t and doesn‘t have to honor a request for a lost username or password that doesn’t come from the original owner or doesn’t come from someone who has access to the given account recovery methods. Additionally, as a Florida resident, you should make sure that your Last Will and Testament and your Durable Power of Attorney have a “digital asset clause” in them to allow your Personal Representative or your agent under your Durable Power of Attorney to legally access these accounts and use your passwords (or have them re-set if you fail to write them down).
In the end, if you’re still unsure, consult an estate attorney with experience in handling digital property. Our Tampa will and trust attorneys are here to help you get started. Simply call our office at (813) 438-8503 to get started.