So Who Inherits Your iTunes and eBook Libraries?

Here's the good news: one less thing for the relatives to fight over after you're gone.

Because the answer appears to be that you cannot bequeath your iTunes list to anyone. Per se. You can, of course, give your iPod or iPhone or laptop to someone and, assuming you pass along all the relevant passwords they can copy your list. But actually determining what rights, if any, you may have for any of your accumulated electronic wealth is a legal gray area shrouded in black.

The issue comes down to rights. Which, if you bother to read the boiler plate legalese Apple and others make you agree to with a dot occasionally before downloading, you do not have. Or own. In fact, the rights are 'nontransferable.' And you agreed. Same with eBooks.

Many states have passed laws granting access to digital accounts, a crucial right given the degree to which the computer has replaced the file cabinet as the source of knowledge and wealth. But the same rights do not usually extend to electronic files you may have purchased.

Enjoy them while you have them. And remember that it's not really going to be your problem anyway. JL

Quentin Fottrell reports in MarketWatch:

Many of us will accumulate vast libraries of digital books and music over the course of our lifetimes. But when we die, our collections of words and music may expire with us.
who owned 10,000 hardcover books and the same number of vinyl records could bequeath them to descendants, but legal experts say passing on iTunes and Kindle libraries would be much more complicated.

And one’s heirs stand to lose huge sums of money. “I find it hard to imagine a situation where a family would be OK with losing a collection of 10,000 books and songs,” says Evan Carroll, co-author of “Your Digital Afterlife.” “Legally dividing one account among several heirs would also be extremely difficult.”

Part of the problem is that with digital content, one doesn’t have the same rights as with print books and CDs. Customers own a license to use the digital files — but they don’t actually own them.

Apple (US:AAPL) and Amazon.com (US:AMZN) grant “nontransferable” rights to use content, so if you buy the complete works of the Beatles on iTunes, you cannot give the “White Album” to your son and “Abbey Road” to your daughter.

According to Amazon’s terms of use, “You do not acquire any ownership rights in the software or music content.” Apple limits the use of digital files to Apple devices used by the account holder.

“That account is an asset and something of value,” says Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss, an estate-planning attorney at Fein, Such, Kahn & Shepard in Parsippany, N.J.

But can it be passed on to one’s heirs?

Most digital content exists in a legal black hole. “The law is light years away from catching up with the types of assets we have in the 21st Century,” says Wheatley-Liss. In recent years, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Indiana, Oklahoma and Idaho passed laws to allow executors and relatives access to email and social networking accounts of those who’ve died, but the regulations don’t cover digital files purchased.

Apple and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

There are still few legal and practical ways to inherit e-books and digital music, experts say. And at least one lawyer has a plan to capitalize on what may become be a burgeoning market. David Goldman, a lawyer in Jacksonville, says he will next month launch software, DapTrust, to help estate planners create a legal trust for their clients’ online accounts that hold music, e-books and movies. “With traditional estate planning and wills, there’s no way to give the right to someone to access this kind of information after you’re gone,” he says.