Comments on: Digital Life after Death: Social Media and Your Digital Content Post Mortem

By: Death 2.0 or Eternity 2.0?

Death 2.0 or Eternity 2.0? — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:28:03 +0000

[...] investor will check if I am alive, but will be happy about one more user in the database. So many questions to answer and the time is running out. It feels a little uncomfortable to use services like [...]

By: nuevayores blogs

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:18:04 +0000

nice,thanks for the info

By: Rex Gradeless

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:28:18 +0000

Just wanted to point out that Evan Carroll has a great post about Legacy Locker here – http://www.thedigitalbeyond.com/2009/10/jeremy-toeman-on-the-importance-of-online-assets/

By: Evan Carroll

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:35:46 +0000

Jessica,
Great article. I’m really pleased to see this topic gaining the attention of the legal community. Online content is changing the way we present our identity, publish our intellectual property and grieve and it’s going to require some new precedents to govern it.

To answer your question, no matter how you do it, it’s very important to leave instructions for the disposition of your online content. I think it would be a significant headache for your survivors if you did not.

By: Jessica Dobias

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:54:52 +0000

I’m impressed that your wills and trusts class covered this question. I haven’t had Estates and Trusts yet, but my property professor didn’t even cover the topic of digital content after death. I’m happy that someone is covering it!

As for Facebook and digital content, I think you’re absolutely correct. I was actually inspired to write this article after two of my friends passed away and their Facebook profiles became memorialized. I know the individuals who now control those accounts are family members, but you’re absolutely on target with question concerning what happens to that content after the beneficiaries die. Does that content get handed over to the next set of beneficiaries or is it forgotten – and later sold as digital treasures of a forgotten person? Kind of morbid.

I don’t know that there needs to be a legal remedy either, but it seems people should be begin thinking of their digital assets and content. I checked out your blog and I noticed you have quite a bit of content circulating on your site. Have you made any plans for what happens to that content if something unexpected happens? I guess that was really the point of the blog post – I think people should start thinking about their digital content.

People often forget that they own their content and freely share it with Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, blogs, Google Profiles and LinkedIn. There is so much content free floating and often forgotten from wills. That information belongs to somebody and should be removed or entrusted to someone who the now deceased owner can trust, don’t you think?

I guess I just worry that the market will be too slow to catch up and people’s content will get forgotten or overlooked leaving it to greedy websites that use and abuse it for marketing purposes. Maybe I’m too much of a skeptic, but I hope this post made at least one person think about their digital content and protecting it.

By: Tweets that mention Digital Life after Death: Social Media and Your Digital Content Post Mortem | Social Media Law Student -- Topsy.com

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:43:40 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John Carter McKnight and Jessica Dobias, Tyson Mutrux. Tyson Mutrux said: Digital content: http://bit.ly/N7GAR [...]

By: Luke

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:14:44 +0000

Great question. It came up at the end of our wills and trusts course and the answer seemed to be – who knows? Certainly there are some forms of digital content that can be passed on to our beneficiaries, but I think it’s less clear for a social media service like Facebook. For instance, I would be comfortable with the survivors of a facebook friend inheriting control over the account and maintaining it but I would be outraged if his or her heirs then auctioned it off to a marketing company in an estate sale. The content is owned, but it doesn’t seem to be just like any other property.

I guess the real question is whether a legal remedy is necessary yet to set default rules regarding ‘legacy’ content? Perhaps it’s best left to the market to decide how to handle this at this point – i.e. a point of competition among social media providers or a potential service provided by lawyers in managing the disposition of digital assets after death.