[sff_writer_dan]

Originally Posted by Dynam0

Rant incoming

Lately I've been considering drafting a will although I'm relatively young and it's probably not necessary as all of my possessions would go to my parents / next of kin. But at some point it's going to be necessary.

I've been thinking about all the time I've spent on this site, playing rhythm games, and just video games in general. Sometimes I almost consider the "work" that I've put into these hobbies as accomplishments, things that I would like to leave a legacy behind even after I pass. It might be totally selfish, but as a guy who feels having children is totally not in the cards for me, it's been crossing my mind.

My thought is to make a clause within my will that states "person x" shall retain control of my computer hard drives, and also account credentials and data from x,y, and z websites. What they decide to do with this data is up to them but I think that not setting up a system like this could result in some really valuable information that would be lost to time.

Am I way off the mark here? It's just something I've been thinking about lately. (dw I don't plan on dying any time soon but you never know with my impulses and proclivity to take risks)

If there are any takers who would like to retain my digital assets after I pass let me know :P

Leave the physical media to people, like you can specifically will your computer to somebody. The logins and passwords aren't tangible items so you can't leave them to anybody formally, just either tell the people you want to have them, before you die, or write them down in a physical book, and leave the book to the person you want to have the credentials.

Almost any other digital asset you have (Like, contents of an MMO character etc) you almost certainly don't actually own, since all of their setups are basically giving you a license to access the service which wouldn't persist past your death.

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

If you've published data or content online, you may or may not actually have legal ownership over the IP. If there are certain arty things you've made that you really care about, you should check the legal+privacy policies on those sites.

Any unpublished stuff shouldn't be a problem though, if you will it to your estate when you pass.

Canada is a signatory to the Berne Convention so anything creative you produce is automatically under copyright even if you don't register it. If you've submitted it to somewhere else, most policies have you give them an extremely broad but -non-exclusive- right to use your work, so while they'd retain that right, you still retain yours.