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Re:Ask HN: How will you manage your digital assets when you ... by sjg007 on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @04:28PM (#16532252)
Digital movies are inheritable.
Re:Ask HN: How will you manage your digital assets when you ... by WorldMaker on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @05:05PM (#16532510)
I agree they should be, but the fact of the matter is that its not that simple. A digital movie unlock in the systems I mentioned are a "service license" where your relationship to that property is via the service's Terms & Conditions. There's not "digital asset" law that currently takes precedence over such T&Cs and it's not been tested in court (to my lay knowledge at least), if those are inheritable.

More directly, if we look at Movies Anywhere's T&Cs [1], here's the main description of your license:

«Within the Territory and subject to the terms and conditions in these Movies Anywhere Terms of Use, Movies Anywhere grants you a limited, personal use, non-transferable, non-assignable, revocable, non-exclusive and non-sublicensable right»

I am not a lawyer, but the keywords there seem to me to be non-transferable and non-assignable. That is meant to keep you from reselling movies unlocked in your account, but also implies that the right is not inheritable. So too, the words "personal use" may imply "you and only you". Though that is a fun gray area in the terms because the system allows family accounts that bend past "only you". That's also why there is gray area in inheritance cases. The T&C as written would seem to me to bind only to you, not your family. Disney has the right to suspend your account for any reason at all, according to the T&Cs, but if they did need a reason "your death" is pretty clear because at that point the T&Cs no longer apply to "you".

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but this seems a pretty big and ugly minefield for digital assets that I would love to see more frank conversations about. I think it is a missing EFF plank, at the very least (and I've mentioned that with past donations).

[1] https://moviesanywhere.com/terms-of-use

Re:Ask HN: How will you manage your digital assets when you ... by icebraining on Wednesday March 07, 2018 @03:38AM (#16535094)
Yes. Apparently some people are creating Trusts which actually hold these licenses, but the idea hasn't been tested in court.