Whose [Digital] Assets are They Anyway?

Q I read your ‘What am I Worth?’ article last month. I’ve got a copy of your schedule of assets – most useful. I stumbled upon some half-witted guff on the interwebs titled: ‘What Happens to Your Social Media Accounts When You Die?’ The author of this piece missed a trick, as surely these accounts are worthless. Also, please enlighten me on digital assets.

Janice M.

Sutton

Dear Janice,

In the long ago, likely when Methuselah was still in nappies, I encountered a testator who attempted to include a condition in her will relating to her son inheriting her collection of Wisden, the cricketing almanac.

This collection comprised a copy of every edition, including the 1864 edition worth ￡25,000. She planned to leave the collection to the boy ‘on the condition that the collection was not sold’. It led me to muse on an inherent quality of property: what’s the value of something that can’t be sold?

This was one of the first times I steered an estate away from the iceberg of an expensive and unhappy future.

She Shoots People

You’re one of a handful of people I’ve not told about my friend Ingrid. Ingrid Weel is a photographer. Her proficiency with a camera is such that she’s almost a magician. Put another way, she captures my likeness in so fetching a manner as to make me look good. By the wondrous calculations of computers, she - like you, me, and many hundreds of millions everywhere – stores stuff on the cloud. The stuff she puts on the cloud she can sell, because she created it. She could sell these images today and her estate could sell them after her death.

On death all, yes all, of the deceased’s assets pass to their estate to be handled as their will or, heaven forbid, the rules of intestacy instruct.

To Conflate Access with Assets

When a bank, credit card issuer or utilities firm, such as a gas or electricity company, offers you the option to operate your account on the web, indeed, it’s practically the default option these days, they are just giving you access. The underlying accounts are to be resolved by the executor on death, and the accounts closed.

Original works of artistic and literary merit which could be sold, such as Ingrid’s photographic work, are assets.

But, have you ever tried to sell the music on your iPod or the books on your Kindle? There isn’t a market for any such material, because, they don’t belong to you.

Social Media...

Let’s now come to social media accounts. Can you sell any of the things you’ve uploaded to Twitter, Tumblr or TikTok?

Did you bung Yelp, LinkedIn, or LiveJournal anything in return for them allowing you to use their platforms to do the things I’m informed people do on these networks?

Did you render unto Microsoft, Yahoo or Google any pounds, shillings or pence so you could open innumerable email accounts to sign up to mailing lists you really don’t want to put your name to?

As the answers to the foregoing three queries are in the negative, your estate has no right to your email or social media accounts or anything held thereon.

Basic Law of Contract

Of course, your letter, Janice, illustrates your understanding of the basic principle of contract. So, if you’ve paid for online storage, think of it as you would a bricks and mortar storage unit: your estate may retrieve material from the unit that’s yours. Just as Ingrid or her estate may retrieve her photographs.

Despite what you might have heard, your social media accounts aren’t yours. You’ve not paid Facebook or TikTok or whatever social media du jour any cash in return for the service they provide, therefore, they owe you nothing.

For the sake of convenience, here's a STEP guide on some social media organisations' procedure for managing accounts of deceased persons.

Your executors may, armed with such particulars as death certificates and letters of administration, petition the companies to close your accounts with them.

But, that is all.

Anyway,

Take care.