Morbid thought, I know...sorry. The Mrs. and I recently wrote our first Wills and it got me thinking...

CDs: This one is easy, your property thus part of your estate. You can pass them down, leave them to Goodwill to sell, or sell them yourself beforehand. Whatever you want since it's your property.

Apple: I read that Apple will close your account and remove all contents.

Amazon: I believe it's suppose to work like Apple, only there's no way to enforce it. They can remove your account but you've already downloaded your DRM-free MP3s. I guess it's up to your heirs to do the right thing and delete them?

Any precedents set yet? Does this also apply to games and movies? Is all of your physical media considered part of your estate?

I'd say that's a question for an estate lawyer. The issue has to have come up before now.



The Jedi Master

Most of my digital MP3s I've burned to CDs, so they'd get handed along with the real CDs and LPs.

The media accounts themselves... I'd totally expect the TOS/EULA to just vaporize them if they could.

Leave the login/pass to whoever you want in a sealed envelope for your estate handler to hand out?

Sounds reasonable enough, as long as they don't find out.

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http://www.mcelhearn.com/what-happens-to-content-purchased-from-apple-when-you-die/

"You agree that your Account is non-transferable and that any rights to your Apple ID or Content within your Account terminate upon your death."

...and they agree with you...

"Another point to make is that Apple's terms and conditions make it clear that you do not own any content you purchase from the company, but are only granted access until your death. That's a much more complicated issue that may, one day, have to be dealt with by the courts.

In any case, make sure you have a spare set of keys – your Apple ID password – in a safe place. Just in case."
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My music collection is on my kindle HDX. I'll just will my Kindle to someone. It doesn't take up any space or require special handling.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/opinion/where-do-e-books-go-when-you-do.html?_r=0

"To the question, “So what happens to all my Kindle e-books when I die?” Amazon replied, “I’m sorry; Kindle content can’t be resold or donated, or transferred between accounts. The purchase and download of digital content from Amazon.com, including content from the Kindle Store, is associated with the Amazon.com account used to make the original purchase. As a result, Kindle content can’t be transferred to another person.”
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But you mentioned music, so as long as your music isn't attached to an account, the receiver of your Kindle should be fine.

Wow! This could be as deep as you want it to be, or as simple as "I don't care." Nevertheless, a very interesting question.

For myself, I don't give a sh!t now - so I likely won't care after I die. Take my digital music and spread the ashes over the tomb of Napster.

Surprised no one has mentioned their prized porn collection yet.

LOL.

letterboy, before I forget, Giselle last week was superb! Totally exceeded our expectations (even with catching a couple of flaws/missteps) and the LSU Union Theater renovation is beautiful. The house was packed and I was proud to be among the many senior citizens who gave those pretty little Russian ballet dancers a roaring applause that put Orlando Rush fans to shame!

Seriously, I may live in a cesspool of a state but a Coonass audience (even an elderly one) really knows how to give positive energy to a live performance! Remembering the audience at Rush's "Time Machine" 2010 in New Orleans, oh man I can't wait until the 22nd!

++++++++++

Ok, I wanted to mention that I have a small stake in all this. I own a Kindle Touch with about 20 book purchases between my wife and myself, although it's leveled off lately.

Also, to be fair there are exceptions to physical boxed media without online/account DRM being transferable, there was a very published case involving AutoCAD which includes a non-transferable license. In fact, the biggest reasons I'm tied to Y2000 software are not just technical but also legal, involving AutoCAD.

I may have even lost my AutoCAD license when I dissolved my S-corporation (even as sole proprietor) but I'm not motivated enough to check, like you said..."I don't give a sh!t"

If the Reaper comes suddenly, you should have a buddy who...knows what to do.

All purchased music on Amazon is indeed linked to your account. Using the Amazon MP3 player program for a PC/Mac or the Amazon Music app for tablets/phones all the music you've ever bought digitally is available to redownload/stream.



The Jedi Master

David, lol! I had to wait until this morning to stream YT, funny as hell as expected (love that guy)!

I don't worry about going before the Mrs. as there are no secrets between us. Besides, anything I might want to take with me to the grave would be in 1's and 0's and so encrypted and disguised that it would take an FBI forensic lab to figure it out and reveal the contents, and they would most certainly be disappointed (nothing illegal). Those measures are more for a scenario if the Mrs. and I go together.

And in that case, I believe my family would have enough sense to give my brother first pass. What married couple of over 25 years doesn't have a "toy box", the only slightly unusual contents would be the assortment of razors. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the mad Picasso skillz I have to give myself a perfectly round and symmetrical goatee are put to more interesting uses. But nothing TOO out there.

JM, I have an Amazon Cloud account with about 30 to 40 MP3 purchases (mostly stuff I couldn't conveniently find on CD) but the files have no actual link to the account, once I download (which I do immediately, I don't cloud stream) there's no further connection to Amazon, it's just a standalone MP3.

Yes, if the files aren't lost.



The Jedi Master

But then I can just re-download those files, as many times as I want, still no connection with any service.

Lost, scratched, broken...I never bought into the mentality of being protected from one's self, I take full responsibility for my media. I know exactly what I own, where it's located and I take very good care of my stuff. Some enjoy a blanket of protection and that's fine, as long as we have a choice (which we continue to lose, our choices and options).

I have a 360p. book dealing just with the Windows 2000 Registry, I love to muck around in there, sometimes I intentionally destroy my OS with experimenting just for kicks. And in less than 10 min. I can have any PC I own brought right back to perfection. This to me is what makes PCs fun, how you learn. Just the shear size and online dependencies of today's OSs and other media make that most difficult.