Does your will include gifting your ebooks?

[SteveEisenberg]

Hopefully folks here will live a good long life and, by its end, a large portion of their eBook collection will be public domain.

Note to Canadian residents, both permanent and tourist: Ian Fleming went public domain last week. Amazon, which bought US and Canada rights to most titles, is still trying to sell Kindle editions for CDN$9.27, but I doubt they can do that much longer.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by burnafterreading

Physical property is a non-issue. This thread and the ton of confusion is about nonphysical property, specifically digital licensed "things".

if someone is worried about what happens to a $3.99 ebook, then they clearly aren't leaving much else so they've led a pretty meaningless life. if someone is saying they've got tens of thousands of dollars tied up in this, then maybe they should have paid more attention to what they're buying or had a more suitable contract drafted.

You seem to be evading the not having a meaningful life issue you mentioned, which I took to be based on not having physical property to leave from your post?

Helen

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Hopefully folks here will live a good long life and, by its end, a large portion of their eBook collection will be public domain.
.

A nice thought but barring massive advances in medical technology or a significant reduction in copyright terms I suspect the proportion of my ebook library that's public domain at my death will be about the same as it is now. If not less because I'm still acquiring books and they're mostly by contemporary authors, so the ones that pass out of copyright will probably be outnumbered by the new books that aren't.

[burnafterreading]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

You seem to be evading the not having a meaningful life issue you mentioned, which I took to be based on not having physical property to leave from your post?

Helen

See post #71

if it's just smiles and helping others, a will is irrelevant and discussing who gets ebooks and other digital goods is a spectacular waste of time for that person, n'est pas?

nearly any joe / joanne can amass thousands of ebooks and mp3 files (or licenses for them as the case seems to be). it takes no great personal effort to do that and 99.99999% of the times the item isn't even rare. there's no real personal mark on that.

[gmw]

Dealing with minor details - like who gets an ereader that possibly no one wants - is one of the reasons why we have executors on wills. Generally there is no need to say who gets what book out of your collection* - unless you want to, but see the next paragraph - that aspect can be dealt with between the executor(s) and beneficiaries of the estate when the time comes. The most important part, as the OP covers, is to ensure that the executors have access to everything needed to do that.

Those that have built specifically valuable collections may want to make specific provision for the collection as a whole, but rarely for individual items in the collection because that becomes a maintenance nightmare while you're still alive, and an administrative nightmare for the executor(s). Keep it simple and you will improve your chances of having the distribution of your estate go smoothly. (Or to phrase this another way: have some sympathy for those that have to deal with your estate and don't make it unnecessarily complicated for them, things will be hard enough as it is.)


* For the moment speaking of paper books on the assumption that ebooks might one day be treated similarly.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by burnafterreading

See post #71

if it's just smiles and helping others, a will is irrelevant and discussing who gets ebooks and other digital goods is a spectacular waste of time for that person, n'est pas?

nearly any joe / joanne can amass thousands of ebooks and mp3 files (or licenses for them as the case seems to be). it takes no great personal effort to do that and 99.99999% of the times the item isn't even rare. there's no real personal mark on that.

But does it mean they have not had a meaningful life. Or because you and I don't obsess on that issue we have had more meaningful lives. I am still not understanding your saying

if someone is worried about what happens to a $3.99 ebook, then they clearly aren't leaving much else so they've led a pretty meaningless life. if someone is saying they've got tens of thousands of dollars tied up in this, then maybe they should have paid more attention to what they're buying or had a more suitable contract drafted.

It is like saying if you give $5 to charity then that is all you have or all you are worth.

I don't care about leaving eBooks, and you don't either, but those who do are possibly reasonable human beings with a few bucks in the bank and maybe quite a few. They aren't necessarily losers with no possessions other than a $3.99 eBook as you imply, in fact I really doubt that is ever the case.

Helen

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

My question is: What provisions can be made to thoroughly wipe licensed only material after your death and how many of us have made them?

I don't feel a strong moral obligation to do so as I doubt anyone will be leaping gleefully on my ebooks but maybe I should.
Helen

This is a response to all (Not just speakingtohe)

Yep, that is one of the prime questions of this thread, and people don't seem to be particularly concerned about ensuring the 'security' of their eproperty on their death. And that I find strange.

I think that doing as much as one can to close down, or wipe one's drives, pc's etc is very important and not just because it's their data and upon death they can't access it again, but because of the potential misuse, including criminal misuse, that could be made of the information/accounts etc. And that in itself is not a legacy that I would want to consider leaving to other family members (or the State) to clean up after me.

It used to be that when one was gone (dead) they were gone, but not so today. Today a digital footprint remains, and will potentially linger for ever, be it good or bad information.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by burnafterreading

if one of the parties ceases to exist and there's no clause in the contract that dictates who steps in to replace said party, then the contract ceases to exist. and thus does the license. no more contract, no more license to read the book, no more access to the book. how are (some of) you people not getting this!?!?

if someone is worried about what happens to a $3.99 ebook, then they clearly aren't leaving much else so they've led a pretty meaningless life. if someone is saying they've got tens of thousands of dollars tied up in this, then maybe they should have paid more attention to what they're buying or had a more suitable contract drafted.

A number of ebook sellers have closed down over the last few years, for example Book Depository UK closed it's ebook store, Books on Board, Sony etc

At the time that these stores gave notification that they were closing down they advised customers to download their purchased ebooks from their servers and to store them for themselves. The explained to customers that they would not be able to access those ebook purchases again once the store had closed.

Sony sold it's customer base purchased ebooks to Kobo and so there were two options: Sony would transfer your purchased ebooks to your nominated Kobo account (and Kobo servers) or you could just download your Sony purchased ebooks once and for all.

Are you suggesting that there is/has been an ebook company that failed to inform their customers prior to their closing?

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Yep, that is one of the prime questions of this thread, and people don't seem to be particularly concerned about ensuring the 'security' of their eproperty on their death. And that I find strange.

I think that doing as much as one can to close down, or wipe one's drives, pc's etc is very important and not just because it's their data and upon death they can't access it again, but because of the potential misuse, including criminal misuse, that could be made of the information/accounts etc. And that in itself is not a legacy that I would want to consider leaving to other family members (or the State) to clean up after me.

It used to be that when one was gone (dead) they were gone, but not so today. Today a digital footprint remains, and will potentially linger for ever, be it good or bad information.

While I generally agree with you on most issues I can't quite see this one for most people.
I am older and know many people who care very little about their current financial status due to senility or apathy. My Mother is one of them.
Her attitude is literally who cares?

I never gave it much thought before this thread, but how many do?

And how might this be accomplished for all electronic media. A clause in the will stating that you want all of your storage devices destroyed unread? Seems silly as anyone who could actually use this stuff could probably get it elsewhere. Still ones conscience would perhaps be clear.

Hopefully this will not be my final thought before I pop off. Like wondering if you left the kettle on.

I am of the opinion that most smaller things should be given before death, to people who actually want them. If it is ever legal to will them it will be legal to give them. If legality doesn't matter, why wait and put the entire burden of morality on your legatees when they are already stressed by your death.

Helen

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

While I generally agree with you on most issues I can't quite see this one for most people.
I am older and know many people who care very little about their current financial status due to senility or apathy. My Mother is one of them.
Her attitude is literally who cares?

I never gave it much thought before this thread, but how many do?

And how might this be accomplished for all electronic media. A clause in the will stating that you want all of your storage devices destroyed unread? Seems silly as anyone who could actually use this stuff could probably get it elsewhere. Still ones conscience would perhaps be clear.

Hopefully this will not be my final thought before I pop off. Like wondering if you left the kettle on.

I am of the opinion that most smaller things should be given before death, to people who actually want them. If it is ever legal to will them it will be legal to give them. If legality doesn't matter, why wait and put the entire burden of morality on your legatees when they are already stressed by your death.

Helen

Can I say first off that I should have clarified at the beginning of my post that I was aiming it as a discussion for all (and not at you! ooops ...)

Re the clause in the Will identifying what is to become of eproperty, forum memberships, web accounts (including say ebook store accounts etc etc) then yes, I do think that appropriate. The clause could state that these accounts be closed for example, and that access to close them be gained via the passwords that had been left as part of the Will.

And oh yep, my mother who still has all her faculties also (in her words) 'can't be bothered' with much these days, particularly with 'red tape'. So yes, it's left to me even now when she's alive to handle all her administrative etc events.

I agree with you re giving away property, real/digital, while a person is still capable of doing so, but that doesn't always happen, eg sudden death (say via car accident) of a person in their 30's (or whatever youngish age).

My grandmother died in her 90's and she gave a lot away as her years progressed, and basically everything upon her death was 'thrown out' in one way or another eg charity bins etc. But she didn't have a digital footprint, whereas it would be unusual for an under sixty year old person today not to. (And over sixty years it's not too uncommon to have a digital footprint either.)

So, yes I think it's a matter of importance to leave instructions as to how to delete and otherwise get rid (as in distribute or destroy) digital property. I know that my greater family has had some 'interesting' fall outs due to the distribution of Wills, and even the currency of a Will, as in which was the most current version and who potentially caused a Will to be rewritten in their favour and how competent was the deceased at the time of re-writing etc. (Ahh yes, families .... )

[murg]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Re the clause in the Will identifying what is to become of eproperty, forum memberships, web accounts (including say ebook store accounts etc etc) then yes, I do think that appropriate. The clause could state that these accounts be closed for example, and that access to close them be gained via the passwords that had been left as part of the Will.

Actually, since on many forums the poster retains copyright to their posts, then the value of the forum membership may not be without value.

For instance, 'The Collective Wisdom of Lynx-Lynx on MobileRead' may sell some copies, 'The MobileRead Musings of BurnWhileReading' may struggle to attract any downloaders for free...

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by burnafterreading

See post #71

if it's just smiles and helping others, a will is irrelevant and discussing who gets ebooks and other digital goods is a spectacular waste of time for that person, n'est pas?

Contrast to:

they clearly aren't leaving much else so they've led a pretty meaningless life

If that was indeed what you meant, you did a really bad job explaining.

I get the feeling that you simply devalue digital possessions, and assume anyone who has a lot of digital possessions

• has not left anything else
• had a meaningless life, Just Because. I guess the value of a person's life is defined by how much physical-as-opposed-to-digital possessions they leave behind.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And your logical fallacy of the day is... the fallacy of judgmental language!

... because you seem to have specifically used language designed to mock anyone with a "meaningless life" in order to lend support for your assertion that no one should care what happens to their digital property when they die.

I would think it reasonable that people care just as much regardless of what specific type of property they wish to pass on (possibly lots of both ).

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by burnafterreading

if one of the parties ceases to exist and there's no clause in the contract that dictates who steps in to replace said party, then the contract ceases to exist. and thus does the license. no more contract, no more license to read the book, no more access to the book. how are (some of) you people not getting this!?!?

Nonsense. The purchase of an ebook gives a licence from the copyright holder, not the retailer. It is good for the length of copyright of any part of the book.

The fact that it is a perpetual licence is one of the reasons that US courts have ruled that such licences (in the case of computer software) are actually sales.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Nonsense. The purchase of an ebook gives a licence from the copyright holder, not the retailer.

But it's the retailer's terms and conditions that you're agreeing to, and they may be more or less restrictive than the strict terms of copyright law may dictate. Eg Amazon's terms and conditions allow the book to be shared with other people in various ways which would be a breach of copyright otherwise.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But it's the retailer's terms and conditions that you're agreeing to, and they may be more or less restrictive than the strict terms of copyright law may dictate. Eg Amazon's terms and conditions allow the book to be shared with other people in various ways which would be a breach of copyright otherwise.

Copyright law says I may not copy copyright works except in a few very limited circumstances.


The only way I can legally read an in-copyright ebook is under a licence from the copyright holder. When I buy an ebook, I’m buying a licence from the copyright holder. The terms and conditions of the ebook store where I buy the ebook set out the terms of the licence, but the licence itself must be with the copyright holder, directly or indirectly. No-one else can give me the required permission.


So whether the ebook store continues to be in busines or not does not affect my licence.