Inheriting Digital Assets

As I have previously discussed, many people possess “digitalassets” that may be of great value to them. However, the value of web domains, photos, videos, email, andsocial-media accounts may be lost if the owner does not take proper legal stepsahead of time.

A will can be used to designate someone who will have accessafter an account-holder dies, but some sites like iTunes do not allow anyone toinherit an account.  One way around theselimits would be to place the license and necessary passwords in a trust.  Licenses may cease to exist upon the death ofthe account-holder but access to accounts can be preserved if the license isplaced in a trust.

The Uniform Law Commission has met to discuss a proposal todraft a law giving fiduciaries the right to manage and distribute clients’digital assets, which would make it easier for consumers to bequeath onlineproperty.  Only Connecticut, Idaho,Indiana, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island currently give fiduciaries this right.

See Arden Dale, Make Sure You Know Who Will Inherit YourTwitter Account, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 18, 2013.

Special thanks toJim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringingthis article to my attention.