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How do you deal with your virtual purchases?

Liquid
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I'm wondering how many people have set up some kind of contingency plan in case of death in regards to our online collections such as iTunes/game stores/any software.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/sep/03/do-you-own-your-digital-content

For example at the moment the law doesn't take into account our online wares. our benifitiaries would gain nothing from our investments.

Now considering the unpressidented spending online who has plans in place should the unfortunate happen?

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/brits-splash-1bn-on-digital-goods-as-disc-sales-shatter-50010082/

It's an aweful lot of money to be reabsorbed back into the companies that sell us such content.

As per the current laws we technically "rent" our digital purchases. Once you add up how much you've spent over the years it's a rather scary amount to not be included within your estate.

I myself have a will which contains a password to my back up drives which have passwords to all my online identities. Anything of value is in there waiting to be passed down.

How about you?
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perksie
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Using a will to pass on your online stuff and passwords is a good idea and one that we all should be doing.

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MI5
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My family know where my passwords are securely stored so they can access anything they need when I'm gone. That includes online bank accounts so the misses can get at my money and transfer it into her account.... Oh, wait, hang on a min....!!
I have no affiliation whatsoever with O2 or any subsidiary companies. Comments posted are entirely of my own opinion. This is not Customer Service so we are unable to help with account specific issues.

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jonsie
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When my dear wife passed away all her log-ons and passwords were stored in the safe and made things so much easier to transfer money into my accounts, access her private pension details and her ISA. Meant I could transfer everything to myself without having the funds frozen whilst they were waiting for death certificates etc.

 

Even to closing Paypal, facebook and email accounts. Whilst they were all heartbreaking things to do, having all the details certainly helped and my kids know where all my log-ins and passwords are stored and that in itself makes me far more comfortable when it comes to my own demise.

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Liquid
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I'd give you a kudo for that last line mi5 haha.

Glad to know I'm not the only one doing this.
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sheepdog
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@Liquid wrote:
....
As per the current laws we technically "rent" our digital purchases. Once you add up how much you've spent over the years it's a rather scary amount to not be included within your estate.
....

Not quite the law. Its just a set of T&C's we agree to when signing up to these downloads so in effect we only licence the product for use on device. Its not really rent as you cannot get your money back nor hand back the product! Its bad enough at the moment with app stores with little or no redress over faulty purchases.

 

The law for copying the media is quite different though as technically you can't copy and distribute though its a bit of a grey area to whether you can make a copy for use on another device or for archival purposes. I've been buying a bit of software lately and fortunately most of them allow you to do that. Takes a bit of digging but not all companies have that in the user agreement. 

 

Back on topic...oddly, I tend to favour physical as much as possible (resale value!) and if downloaded, its very unlikely it has anything of importance worth keeping or transferring. I've got a long term project of digitally archiving my media including paperwork so in terms of backups, it is as important as keeping things in a will etc. As for financial things, thats something I do need to deal with.

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Anonymous
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There's an ammendment to the UK's copyright law due to be drafted early in 2013 with full implementation expected by October this year.  The "headline" news is that it will finally allow us to legally transfer content to other media and players for personal use - making it legal to buy a CD/DVD and make a copy to an mp3 player, for example.

 

Even so, you may not be able to simply leave content to someone in your will.   When you obtain copyrighted material, you are granted a "limited licence" and it depends on the terms of that agreement whether or not the material can be transferred to a third party.   Some contracts - which is what you have with the copyright owner - may specify that the material is "non-transferable" - in the same way that you can't give any un-used portion of a bus or train journey you've paid for to someone else.

 

Basically, if the contract is for life - it ends when you do and it is not as simple - in legal terms - as just telling someone else how to access it.  In fact, if the licence is not transferable, giving someone free access to your data drive is simply file-sharing and comes with the same legal limitations as bunging copies onto Pirate Bay.

 

Besides - given what's on my hard drives, I'd rather the thing was cremated with me.  I'm not worried about them finding the "anatomical studies" videos - I just don't want anyone knowing that I owned a Celine Dion album slight_smile

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