Who inherits?

[jgaiser]

An interesting article on marketwatch.com on the problems of passing on your digital files (music and ebooks).

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.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/who...ary-2012-08-23

[Freeshadow]

That's why I always say: Sell on media carriers!

[desertgrandma]

Oh good grief, strip the damn things and you won't have to worry about 'who owns them'!

I bought them, I own them, regardless of what some bureaucrat pushing a pencil behind some tiny desk somewhere says.

In the ITunes case, until someone manages to crack their code, I'd just give my password and IPad to whoever I wanted to........problem solved.

Have we really become such sheep that we blindly follow totally ridiculous "laws"?

Let the flaming begin.......this should be interesting.

[david_e]

.....

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Oh good grief, strip the damn things and you won't have to worry about 'who owns them'!

While I completely agree with you, as has been pointed out numerous times here on MR, 90+% of users have *no* idea how to remove DRM or that there is even something called DRM.

[Phogg]

I can't imagine my kids would want the things my wife and I read anymore than the family wanted my maternal grandmother's books.

We had to have the stuff hauled off to a rummage sale. Fortunately, my kids will be able to just delete mine.

[pidgeon92]

Yeah, I have a shoebox full of pictures of old, dead Germans. They're my relatives, but I haven't any clue as to how they are related. I think inheritance is overly romanticized.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Oh good grief, strip the damn things and you won't have to worry about 'who owns them'!

I bought them, I own them, regardless of what some bureaucrat pushing a pencil behind some tiny desk somewhere says.

In the ITunes case, until someone manages to crack their code, I'd just give my password and IPad to whoever I wanted to........problem solved.

Have we really become such sheep that we blindly follow totally ridiculous "laws"?

Let the flaming begin.......this should be interesting.

Originally Posted by david_e

Anyone who believes the kids / grandkids just can't wait to get their hands on their digital copies of Judith Krantz or The Eagles probably should have been stopped from reproducing in the first place.

Originally Posted by Phogg

I can't imagine my kids would want the things my wife and I read anymore than the family wanted my maternal grandmother's books.

We had to have the stuff hauled off to a rummage sale. Fortunately, my kids will be able to just delete mine.

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

Yeah, I have a shoebox full of pictures of old, dead Germans. They're my relatives, but I haven't any clue as to how they are related. I think inheritance is overly romanticized.

All of you are 100% correct.

With the exception of a couple of pots & dishes, most of my mothers belonging went into the trash when we cleaned out her apartment. Why anyone would think that your children or grandchildren would be interested in reading your books or listening to your songs is beyond me. And if they do, then make sure to strip the drm from them like I do & the problem is solved.

Trust me, with such limited space as most apartments & houses have these days you don't want or need to accumulate more (old) stuff from others.

I think most people who see my condo probably think that I live a very spartan life, but I have learned the hard way after cleaning out my mothers & older brothers apts. that I don't want my last remaining brother to give himself a heart attack lugging a bunch of old dusty romance novels down to the dumpster.

I dumped the majority of them myself when I moved here in 2008. Anything that was in my storage locker at my old building went straight into the garbage. I didn't see the sense of lugging it from one storage locker to another.

If I ever have to move again or if someone has to clean out my condo, they won't have a lot of work to do!

[abookreader]

I'm of the strip it and don't worry about it camp.

Funny how we can create an entire library of "old crap" here and then turn right around and proclaim that nobody would be interested in reading that old stuff anyway.

[JoHunt]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Have we really become such sheep that we blindly follow totally ridiculous "laws"?

Let the flaming begin.......this should be interesting.

Publishers have been very successful with their licensing mumbo jumbo in convincing everyone that ebooks are some sort of holy grail that can only be accessed under very restrictive circumstances. To me an ebook is a book (nothing more, nothing less) and I will treat it the same as any other book in my library.

Now the flaming can really begin

Originally Posted by Phogg

I can't imagine my kids would want the things my wife and I read anymore than the family wanted my maternal grandmother's books.

I think it's more of a case of the kids wanting to keep a few things to remember their parents by, rather than keeping the whole lot. The other thing to consider is that some people are more sentimental than others. One person may dump everything, another may keep everything, but most will be somewhere in between.

Granted e-products are much less sentimental than their mass produced physical counterparts. Likewise, those mass produced physical counterparts are much less sentimental than something they created personally.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Oh good grief, strip the damn things and you won't have to worry about 'who owns them'!

I bought them, I own them, regardless of what some bureaucrat pushing a pencil behind some tiny desk somewhere says.

In the ITunes case, until someone manages to crack their code, I'd just give my password and IPad to whoever I wanted to........problem solved.

Have we really become such sheep that we blindly follow totally ridiculous "laws"?

Let the flaming begin.......this should be interesting.

Google Requiem 3.3.5

Carol

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

An interesting article on marketwatch.com on the problems of passing on your digital files (music and ebooks).


Quote:
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.


http://www.marketwatch.com/story/who...ary-2012-08-23

Hopefully anyone who owned both 10,000 hardcover books and the same number of vinyl record would have quite a few collectible or unique items that could be either treasured or sold. I had a friend who inherited about 1000 Jazz records and the records were warped and the covers were moldy. She is a Jazz enthusiast in her 90's who still has these records in storage, but bemoans the sad condition they are in quite often. Definitely not saleable as she did enquire and not suitable for in home storage so it costs her a small monthly fee to keep them.

Imagine the consternation of the heir on receiving notice of a bequest and finding out that it is 10,000 de-DRMed ebooks that they possibly have no interest in reading, and cannot legally sell.

Helen

[BeccaPrice]

I've told my husband that, should I die before him, he needs to be very careful about disposing of my Patricia Veryan romances, because some of them are very valuable (and she's not in eformat either, so I don't dare re-read Mistress of Willowvale or it will fall apart.

Other than that, I don't think that anyone in my family would be at all interested in my romance collection, either in print or in eformat. We're all dedicated readers in my family, but mostly don't share the same reading habits. (this makes getting audible books each month somewhat entertaining, except that Husband is getting hooked on the In Death books, so that'll keep us happy for awhile yet.)

[Belfaborac]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I had a friend who inherited about 1000 Jazz records and the records were warped and the covers were moldy. She is a Jazz enthusiast in her 90's who still has these records in storage, but bemoans the sad condition they are in quite often.

OT, but I just thought I'd mention that warped LPs can be restored to a perfect, or at least perfectly playable condition quite easily. Two glass plates of a suitable size, a weight (of, say, five pounds) and an oven set to around 50C will do it nicely. Leave the layered glass-vinyl-glass-weight in for a couple of hours, remove and put on a flat surface as-is and leave alone cool too room temperature. Hey presto. I've probably rescued 40-50 LPs in this way over the years, with only one or two proving impossible to restore.