Tag: Evan Carroll

The great digital beyond

The great digital beyond

Eleanore

A friend recently told me of the challenge she faced sorting through her aging parents’ belongings to prepare their home for sale.

Her father had died years ago and her 94-year-old mother had been living in an assisted-care facility for more than a year. Most of the items of sentimental or personal value had already been distributed to her siblings. What remained were her parents’ personal archives — letters, photos, employment/financial/legal/health records, all tangible, physical objects that, once gone, would be gone forever.

In the internet age, personal archives are no longer limited to the tangible. In fact, much of one’s personal archives is now digital — emails, texts, photos, videos and social media accounts. And there’s a lot more content generated and stored than ever before. Some is saved on personal storage space, such as a computer hard drive. Other material lives in the cloud in services like Facebook, Google Mail and YouTube. In most cases, that content is protected by some kind of password.

So what becomes of all of that information when someone dies? Does it remain online forever? Can it be altered, deleted or downloaded, and if so, by whom? And how do these digital artifacts represent your life and legacy?

These questions inspired Evan Carroll and John Romano to create the website thedigitalbeyond.com to address these needs and concerns. Together they wrote the book “Your Digital Afterlife” in 2011. Since that time an entire industry has emerged to help people plan for managing their digital legacy. Thedigitalbeyond.com lists dozens of such online services. Some are free while others are fee-based.

Knotifyme.com, for example, “answers the question, ‘What happens to all my online accounts if I get amnesia, Alzheimer’s or if I leave from this world?’ With knotify.me you set future notifications to be sent to your family and beloved people or to yourself, ensuring that nothing of your digital life will be wasted (and) transfers your online property/heritage (urls, domain names, e-mail & social network accounts, etc.) to whomever you wish to continue it in the future!” You can sign up for this free service through your Facebook, Twitter or Google accounts. In short, according to its tagline, Knotifyme.com “manages your digital heritage.”

To address financial matters, consider Legacyarmour.com, which describes itself as “a secure asset protection platform where you organize your important information in encrypted vaults, and …. automatically deliver it to your designated recipients on a scheduled date, or in case of your death or incapacitation.” It is a fee-based membership service with different levels of coverage and prices depending on what you want.

The rapid growth of the web has outpaced the law in the realm of the digital afterlife. It wasn’t until 2015 that the Uniform Law Commission, a nongovernment organization, created the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA). It has since been adopted by 40 states and been introduced in five more this year. As its name suggests, RUFADAA “allows fiduciaries to manage digital property like computer files, web domains, and virtual currency, but restricts a fiduciary’s access to electronic communications such as email, text messages, and social media accounts unless the original user consented in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record.”

Some online services have their own policies for providing access to a person’s account after he or she dies. Facebook allows users to designate a “Legacy Contact” who is legally permitted to enter someone’s account to post, respond to friend requests, and update profile and cover photos. The Legacy Contact may also be given the power to download an archive of the photos, posts and profile information in that account. Facebook users can also simply opt to have their account permanently deleted after their death. Google offers an Inactive Account Manager feature that allows users to share parts of their account data or notify someone if they’ve been inactive for a certain period of time.

One important and often repeated piece of advice is to never put usernames and passwords for any online accounts in your will, as it becomes a public record once it is entered into a probate court file.

It is never too soon to start estate planning, whether it be for tangible assets or digital ones. It may be well worth your time to investigate the policy options of your online account services and perhaps even avail yourself of some of the many digital afterlife services available today.

Cerise Oberman, SUNY Distinguished Librarian Emeritus, retired as dean of Library & Information Services at SUNY Plattsburgh. She can be reached at cerise.oberman@plattsburgh.edu. Tim Hartnett is associate librarian at SUNY Plattsburgh, Reach him at tim.hartnett@plattsburgh.edu.

Who inherits your iTunes library?

Who inherits your iTunes library?

Eleanore

Many of us will accumulate vast libraries of digital books and music over the course of our lifetimes. But when we die, our collections of words and music may expire with us.

Someone who owned 10,000 hardcover books and the same number of vinyl records could bequeath them to descendants, but legal experts say passing on iTunes and Kindle libraries would be much more complicated.

And one’s heirs stand to lose huge sums of money. “I find it hard to imagine a situation where a family would be OK with losing a collection of 10,000 books and songs,” says Evan Carroll, co-author of “Your Digital Afterlife.” “Legally dividing one account among several heirs would also be extremely difficult.”

Part of the problem is that with digital content, one doesn’t have the same rights as with print books and CDs. Customers own a license to use the digital files — but they don’t actually own them.

Apple AAPL, +0.79% and Amazon.com AMZN, +0.98% grant “nontransferable” rights to use content, so if you buy the complete works of the Beatles on iTunes, you cannot give the “White Album” to your son and “Abbey Road” to your daughter.

According to Amazon’s terms of use, “You do not acquire any ownership rights in the software or music content.” Apple limits the use of digital files to Apple devices used by the account holder.

“That account is an asset and something of value,” says Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss, an estate-planning attorney at Fein, Such, Kahn & Shepard in Parsippany, N.J.

But can it be passed on to one’s heirs?

Most digital content exists in a legal black hole. “The law is light years away from catching up with the types of assets we have in the 21st Century,” says Wheatley-Liss. In recent years, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Indiana, Oklahoma and Idaho passed laws to allow executors and relatives access to email and social networking accounts of those who’ve died, but the regulations don’t cover digital files purchased.

Apple and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

There are still few legal and practical ways to inherit e-books and digital music, experts say. And at least one lawyer has a plan to capitalize on what may become be a burgeoning market. David Goldman, a lawyer in Jacksonville, says he will next month launch software, DapTrust, to help estate planners create a legal trust for their clients’ online accounts that hold music, e-books and movies. “With traditional estate planning and wills, there’s no way to give the right to someone to access this kind of information after you’re gone,” he says.

Here’s how it works: Goldman will sell his software for $150 directly to estate planners to store and manage digital accounts and passwords. And, while there are other online safe-deposit boxes like AssetLock and ExecutorSource that already do that, Goldman says his software contains instructions to create a legal trust for accounts. “Having access to digital content and having the legal right to use it are two totally different things,” he says.

The simpler alternative is to just use your loved one’s devices and accounts after they’re gone — as long as you have the right passwords.

 

Chester Jankowski, a New York-based technology consultant, says he’d look for a way to get around the licensing code written into his 15,000 digital files. “Anyone who was tech-savvy could probably find a way to transfer those files onto their computer — without ending up in Guantanamo,” he says. But experts say there should be an easier solution, and a way such content can be transferred to another’s account or divided between several people.“We need to reform and update intellectual-property law,” says Dazza Greenwood, lecturer and researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.

Technology pros say the need for such reform is only going to become more pressing. “A significant portion of our assets is now digital,” Carroll says. U.S. consumers spend nearly $30 on e-books and MP3 files every month, or $360 a year, according to e-commerce company Bango. Apple alone has sold 300 million iPods and 84 million iPads since their launches. Amazon doesn’t release sales figures for the Kindle Fire, but analysts estimate it has nearly a quarter of the U.S. tablet market.

Why You Won’t Inherit Digital Media

Why You Won’t Inherit Digital Media

Eleanore

Back in 2012 the media was abuzz with tales of what would happen to an  iTunes accounts when the account holder passed away. The short answer is, you can’t. While you might get around the issue by burning your media to CD, providing your credentials to a loved one or even creating your account in the name of a trust, Apple does not support a way to transfer access to your media. During all of that buzz, I had this to say to WSJ’s MarketWatch:

“I find it hard to imagine a situation where a family would be OK with losing a collection of 10,000 books and songs,” says Evan Carroll, co-author of “Your Digital Afterlife.”

Well, I no longer find it hard to imagine. In fact, I don’t think inheriting digital media is something we’ll worry about long-term.

Purchasing digital media is likely to become a thing of the past.

With the release of Kindle Unlimited, adding to the growing list of subscription-based media services like Amazon Prime, Spotify and Netflix, inheritance for digital media becomes less important. Increasingly consumers are attracted to subscription services to provide access to almost every song, video or book, rather than purchase them individually.

When iTunes first emerged, the idea of a subscription service would have seemed foreign. After decades of purchasing media, paying a monthly fee wouldn’t have resonated with consumers. Moreover, Internet bandwidth of the day made it necessary to download media for offline playback, especially on non-connected devices like iPods, which did not have Wi-Fi or cellular capabilities at the time.

Today the subscription services are poised to take over and with a time-based subscription, there’s nothing to inherit.

Protecting your afterlife in the digital realm

Protecting your afterlife in the digital realm

Eleanore

Even when it isn’t Halloween, it can be a scary to think of how much of our lives we live online. Scarier still, perhaps, to think of the digital consequences once we sign off for good. Here’s David Pogue of Yahoo Tech:

Used to be, you knew what to do with all the memorabilia of your life. You’d put it in a box to give to your kids, or you’d write it into your will.

But these days, the most complete record of your life may not be in boxes; it may be online.

All those photos on Flickr. Videos on YouTube. Daily events on Facebook. Thoughts on Twitter. What happens to all that stuff, when you move on to the great cyber café in the sky?

Evan Carroll is an expert on what happens to our online stuff when we die. “We have entered this time as a society where we’re a bit ahead of our laws and our policies with respect to our digital property,” he said.

Carroll and his coauthor maintain a blog, and they’ve even written a book, “Your Digital Afterlife.”

“Some states have laws, some states don’t,” said Carroll. “Some people put these things in their wills now. Some people don’t. So there are so many different things that could happen.”

Nobody crashed into that messy state of affairs harder than John Berlin.

Earlier this year, on Facebook’s 10th anniversary, it offered every member a beautiful, one-minute musical montage of his or her Facebook life.

Jesse Berlin had died in 2012, and his father, John, dearly wanted to see his son’s montage video.

“Only problem with that was, you had to get on his page to request it. I didn’t have access to his page, I didn’t know his password,” John told Pogue.

So he had a desperate, great idea: he made a YouTube video.

“I took my iPhone, I propped it up on a picture against a wall, and I just poured my heart out on it to Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.”

“And we can’t access his Facebook account. I’ve tried emailing and different things, but it ain’t working. All we want to do is see his movie. That’s it.”

Three million people watched his plea.

“And by the end of the day,” said Berlin, “Facebook called me.”

Facebook gave John access to his son’s video — and further improved its existing policies. If your loved one passes away, you can ask for that Facebook account to be what’s called “memorialized.”

“Whatever privacy settings that were in place at the time that the account was memorialized, they allow those to persist,” said Carroll. “Your Facebook profile can become a memorial to you, and can be a place for communal bereavement where they share messages.”

On Google, you can specify in advance exactly what should happen if Google doesn’t hear from you for a few months.

“You can ask them to pass information to another individual,” said Carroll. “You can ask them to delete the account. You can set up an auto-responder to your Gmail account: ‘Hey, I’m no longer checking this account,’ for whatever reason.”

“‘Hey, I’m no longer alive!'” said Pogue.

“That’s a strange email to write!” laughed Carroll.

Already, about 30 million Facebook accounts belong to dead people. To some, that’s a business opportunity. There are now websites that, upon your death, automatically send your list of passwords to someone you’ve specified.

Is Your Digital Life Ready for Your Death?

The big sleep mode: Preparing for your tech life after death

Eleanore

Your money is tied up in online banking, your digital photos and home movies are stored in the cloud, your entire social life is on Facebook and your important documents live on a password-protected computer — when it comes to the digital footprint you leave behind after you die, there are major practical (and legal) implications for tying up all those loose ends.

While you may have considered what to do with your house after you die, technology and legal experts are now warning that our digital lives need some attention too. A 2013 global survey from McAfee found that we store roughly $35,000 worth of digital assets on our devices — almost the same price as a new BMW.

Speaking to CBS News last month, digital legacy specialist and co-founder of the blog The Digital Beyond, Evan Carroll said laws on digital property vary from region to region, while some people address their digital estate in their will and some don’t.

“We have entered this time as a society where we’re a bit ahead of our laws and our policies with respect to our digital policy,” said Carroll.

In Australia, NSW Trustee & Guardian (the government department that provides legal and estate planning advice for Australia’s most populous state) says that the issue isn’t just one of financial losses.
As an example, the department says 9 out of 10 Australians have a social media account, but 83 percent of these people haven’t discussed what happens with these accounts after they’re gone.

NSW Trustee & Guardian Assistant Director for Legal Services Ruth Pollard said we all add to our “digital legacy” every day, but few of us have steps in place to look after this legacy in the event of death.

“The problem is that it is not as easy to transfer digital assets as it is tangible assets such as a car, house or shares,” said Pollard. “Without planning for death there is a danger that the digital assets will become inaccessible or be destroyed when a person dies.”

“With the increase in storing personal information online it is more difficult for executors to determine just what are your assets. Take for example online banking — it is very difficult for an executor to determine what bank or credit unions a deceased person was a member of [when] there are no obvious paper statements sitting in a folder in a filing cupboard anymore.”

Pollard says all Australians should take steps to future-proof their digital assets and simplify the process of executing their will. And while you may consider yourself too young to be thinking about the big sleep, these tips make good advice for anyone who has left their mark on the digital world.

Preparing your digital legacy

  • “Compile a list of all your digital assets and online services”

Include social media, cloud services, email, banking, PayPal, blogs, photos, video storage, eBooks and anything that you don’t want to slip into the digital ether.

  • “For each account or service list the location, the username and password and what files are stored”

If you have lots of passwords, you might opt for a password manager to simplify this. Pollard also suggests leaving instructions for your executor on digital locations for photos and videos, “otherwise a lot of family history and memories can be lost”.

  • “Check the terms of agreement, licence or policy of your account”

According to Pollard, different online accounts have different conditions for what happens to the account when you die, so it pays to know the difference. “Some social media providers may allow for accounts to be memorialised when a user dies (such as Facebook), but others may not,” she said. “Some providers (for example, Microsoft) may be prepared to provide copies of information, documents and photos on the account to the next of kin or the executor, whereas others may simply close the account or delete the contents.”

  • “Think about what you want to happen to [your accounts and files] on your death.

“Do you want social media accounts closed, or memorialised? Do you want photos or emails downloaded, printed and distributed to family and friends? Consider whether you wish to replace books and music with hard copies as ebooks and music purchased from iTunes and Amazon cannot be gifted by will as you obtain them under licence and cannot own them.”

  • If you’re making local copies of digital information, keep in mind that storage methods change over the years.

“Floppy discs aren’t really used any more…Will it be the same in 10 years time for the current methods of storage we’re using?

  • Lists of usernames, passwords and account numbers should not be put into your Will.

“There may be a number of people including your beneficiaries who will be entitled to have a copy of your Will, and so to ensure privacy and protect against fraud…include these instructions in a separate document and let your executor know where you keep this document.”