Lawyers working on digital data rights after death

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – You’ve spent a fortune on that extensive collection of music, movies and books — who gets it when you die?

It depends if it’s sitting on your shelves or on your hard drive. If it’s all on your computer, it might be no one.

Lawyers are trying to figure out how to best deal with digital data rights after death.

Crafted long before mp3’s and ebooks, current Canadian will legislation does not take digital assets into account.

As the Canadian Bar Association wrapped up the final day of its annual conference Tuesday in Saskatoon, wills lawyer Doug Surtees told PostMedia News that companies craft agreements in ways that give people very few rights with respect to digital assets.

“What you actually own is a non-transferable licence to access a digital copy.”

Technically you can’t pass that on.

“What specifically should that legislation [look like] – what rights should it grant us? That’s the million dollar question. That’s why I think we need to have discussions like the one the CBA is starting,” says Surtees.

That conversation includes how to grant loved ones access to digital assets while protecting privacy with respect to things like emails.

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