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Indiana Intellectual Property Blog

~ Trademark and Copyright Law Updates in Indiana

Indiana Intellectual Property Blog

Tag Archives: Google

Planning Your Digital Estate

04 Monday Mar 2019

Posted by Kenan Farrell in Estate Law, Family Law, Just for Fun, Privacy, Tech Developments

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Facebook, Google, Twitter

I’ve written previously on the importance of planning beyond one’s own death.  Simple planning now can prevent unnecessary headaches after you’ve passed. This is typically accomplished by preparing a will and/or obtaining life insurance.  But with the Internet and cloud computing increasingly dominating our daily lives, more adults are taking their lives online, often through social networking, online gaming, or blogging.  Consumers shop, pay bills, and bank online. Important accounts, documents, files and photos are now often managed exclusively online, almost always behind usernames and passwords.

Do you know what would happen to your blog if you die? What happens to the passwords and content of your multiple email accounts? Who, if anyone, would you want to control your Twitter, Facebook or World of Warcraft account?  Think about these questions now and speak to an attorney who can help you plan your digital estate.

Here are a few general guidelines:

Email Accounts
As a general rule, you own your email and electronic correspondence and you can leave this to whomever you choose in your will. However, if your family or executors don’t know your email passwords, they may have trouble retrieving it. Gmail will give access to email contents upon proof of death and proof of relationship.

Facebook and Social Networking Accounts
Facebook and other social networking accounts are slightly different than email accounts as the information on your profile isn’t as private as your emails – your profile is accessible and viewable by anyone whom you’ve granted access. Your profile also appears as a friend of countless others, and will continue to appear until the account is either closed or your friends delete you.

Facebook allows for the “memorialization” of accounts, where the accounts remain open as a tribute. There’s even a form you can use to report a user who has died. However, Facebook won’t release login information, so the account can’t be accessed, changed or updated.

Blogs and Online Content
An additional consideration for managing your digital estate arises for those of us who run blogs. Much like social networking and email accounts, online service providers such as WordPress are reluctant to release login details, even to an executor. If your blog is hosted on your own server or through a third-party hosting service, the task of accessing the site is further complicated and in some cases may be close to impossible.

If you’ve got a blog, you’ve also got intellectual property including copyright to your writings and any trademarks associated with your site. You may also have photographs, music, and other works that are published and maintained online. Copyright generally lasts for 70 years after the death of the author, so there’s a significant tail period of copyright protection that vests in your estate and, just like any other form of property, intellectual property can be bequeathed to a specific individual in your will. If the will does not specify who gets your intellectual property, the standard rules of distribution apply.

Online Worlds
Users spend a great deal time of time creating and managing identities in online worlds like World of Warcraft or Destiny.  But what will happen to these accounts upon your death?  World of Warcraft will transfer ownership of an account to an immediate family member upon proof of death, and the community has even been known to host virtual funerals.

wowdeath

As with other estate planning stories, the moral is to plan ahead.  Here are your action items for planning the disposition of your digital information upon your death:

  1. Select a “digital” executor, someone who you trust to carry out your wishes with respect to your online information
  2. Tell your executor what you want done and give him or her the information needed to carry out your wishes.
  3. Prepare a list of your email and social networking accounts along with your login data and brief details on how to access the accounts.
  4. Update your will to include specific provisions for who will take ownership of your intellectual property and any data that you leave behind.

Stories from the Week that Was – 6/17/12-6/23/12

24 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by Kenan Farrell in Branding, Social Media, Southern District of Indiana, Stories from the Week that Was, Supreme Court, Tech Developments, Trademark

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BitTorrent, Drones, Google

A week spent getting caught up from vacation. I had a great time giving a seminar at the office on Tuesday, Trademark and Brand Protection for Communicators. Look out for more of those in the future. It’s also about time to start preparing for Art & Museum Law, so expect more art world news in these posts in the upcoming months. Here are the top stories I followed this week:

Google reports ‘alarming’ rise in government censorship requests

Why brands are leaning towards minimalism

More Download Cases filed in Indiana

Washington’s 5 Worst Arguments for Keeping Secrets From You

U.S. rejects requests for documents regarding targeted killings with drones

Supreme Court cops out, again, on “fleeting expletives”

Louisiana Sex Offenders Must List Status on Social Media Profile

“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men.  No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” -Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams, 1923

Stories from the Week that Was – 5/27/12-6/2/12

03 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by Kenan Farrell in Bloggers, Branding, Copyright, Litigation, Social Media, Stories from the Week that Was, Tech Developments

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Cookies, DHS, FTC, Google, MySpace, NLRB

China tightens grip on social media with new rules

TV Networks Say You’re Breaking The Law When You Skip Commercials

Germany sets new solar power record, institute says

Got Compliance? The EU Cookie Law & What You Need to Do

Google Applies for More than 50 New Domains Including .LOL and .YouTube

Target on your cyber back: DHS has a list of words deemed ‘suspicious’

Man sues to have ‘Google’ declared a generic word

Privacy practices: how the FTC MySpace settlement affects your business

2012 Logo Trends

Google Obliges Website Copyright Takedown Requests 97% of the Time

NLRB Issues Third Social Media Report

From David Elliott’s Complaint for Cancellation of Trademark and Declaratory Relief:

“3. The term “GOOGLE” is, or has become, a generic term universally used to describe the action of internet searching with any search engine, which cannot serve as a trademark to the exclusion of others.”

View this document on Scribd

Stories from the Week that Was – 5/13/12-5/19/12

20 Sunday May 2012

Posted by Kenan Farrell in Social Media, Stories from the Week that Was, Tech Developments

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ACTA, Google, Kodak, TPP

Kodak Had a Secret Nuclear Reactor Loaded With Enriched Uranium Hidden In a Basement

Google revamps search, tries to think more like a person

McDonald’s tries to rebrand itself, in Berkeley, of all places

“No backroom deals to regulate the Internet. Speak out now against TPP, the new ACTA.” – Electronic Frontier Foundation

Stories from the Week that Was – 1/22/12-1/28/12

28 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by Kenan Farrell in Copyright, Intellectual Property, Stories from the Week that Was, Tech Developments

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ACTA, Anonymous, DMCA, FBI, Google, Megaupload, PIPA, SOPA, Twitter

Stories from the Week that Was – 1/22/12-1/28/12

Apple Will Own Your Work With iBooks Author

How to Designate a DMCA Agent – YouTube

If You Thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA

Super Bowl gets social-media command center

Google to merge user data across its services

SOPA and PIPA Spur Lobbying Spike

Twitter can now censor tweets by country

Megaupload customers who lost their files banding together to sue FBI

Anonymous swoop on Mexico govt. sites in copyright law protest

“Technology was developed to prevent exhausting labor. It is now dedicated to trivial conveniences.” – B.F. Skinner

 

 

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