on 02-01-2013 19:35
on 02-01-2013 19:35
on 02-01-2013 20:29
on 02-01-2013 20:29
Using a will to pass on your online stuff and passwords is a good idea and one that we all should be doing.
on 02-01-2013 20:33
on 02-01-2013 20:33
on 02-01-2013 20:57
on 02-01-2013 20:57
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.
on 02-01-2013 20:58
on 02-01-2013 20:58
on 03-01-2013 09:29
@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.
03-01-2013 12:56 - edited 03-01-2013 12:56
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