Have You Left Your Passwords in Good Hands?

What is a digital death? Have you left your online passwords in good hands? What digital information needs to be protected upon your death and what needs to be deleted? How can a VAIL assist those you leave behind?

For answers to these questions and more, watch this interesting Huffington Post online interview with a panel that includes Samuels Yoelin Kantor LLP partner, Victoria Blachly.

Victoria is the chair for the Oregon State Bar Virtual Assets Work Group, which developed an Oregon Legislative Proposal for statutory changes regarding virtual assets. The proposal will be submitted in 2013 and could be presented to the governor for a law to become effective in 2014. She has also been appointed as an observer to the Uniform Law Commission’s study group that is examining the national issue of access to digital information.

Your Digital Legacy

Samuels Yoelin Kantor LLP partner, Victoria Blachly, was recently quoted in two articles about virtual and digital assets in Time Magazine’s online “Tech” section:

Your Digital Legacy: States Grapple with Protecting Our Data After We Die

Protecting Online Assets: 9 Ways to Safeguard Your Digital Legacy

Victoria is the chair for the Oregon State Bar Virtual Assets Work Group, which developed an Oregon Legislative Proposal for statutory changes regarding virtual assets. The proposal will be submitted in 2013 and could be presented to the governor for a law to become effective in 2014.

Victoria has also been appointed as an observer to the Uniform Law Commission’s study group that is examining the national issue of access to digital information.

Click here to read more about virtual assets.

Who Really “Owns” Your iTunes and Amazon Content?

Like many Americans, I have a digital smart phone, tablet computer, and other digital media devices. Along with owning these devices, I have “purchased” (at least I thought I did) digital content such as music, movies, and digital “ebooks.” Americans purchase around $6 billion (and rising) of such content each year. However, when we die, who “owns” all of this digital content? The “legal” answer may be a surprise.

Typically, when one purchases digital content from providers like Apple or Amazon, a license agreement relating to that content is involved, and this agreement controls your legal rights to that content. Most people don’t really take the time to read and understand these license agreements. Rather, they click the “ACCEPT” button so they can move forward and access the digital content.

A typical digital licensing agreement provides that the content is “personal” and “nontransferable.” This means that these digital providers are licensing (similar to “renting”) this content only to you, and you or your estate do not have the right to transfer this content to a third person (such as your children or other heirs) when you die. Taken literally, when a person dies, the license to the digital content comes to an end.

There is no easy answer to this dilemma. The law relating to rights to digital content still needs to catch up to the world of digital ownership. In Oregon, my law partners, Victoria Blachly and Jeff Cheyne, and I have recently worked on an Oregon State Bar task force to draft proposed legislation which we anticipate will be introduced in the 2013 session of the Oregon Legislature. If passed, this legislation will allow the personal representative of a decedent’s estate to send a notice to a company holding digital content of a decedent, and within a specified time after receipt of that notice, the company must provide the personal representative with access to digital accounts maintain by such company and/or copies of any digital assets stored by the company.

While the potential Oregon legislation is not currently law, it represents an effort by our task force to begin to address an area where the law has not kept pace with technology, particular with respect to the digital content that has become so commonplace in American society. Watch for more updates in Wealth Law Blog as the legislation (hopefully) makes its way through the Oregon legislature.

Samuels Yoelin Kantor Seminar Series

COMPLIMENTARY SEMINAR SERIES

Samuels Yoelin Kantor LLP’s seminar series helps keep our clients and colleagues informed on recent developments and industry best practices. The seminars typically take place in our beautiful, state-of-the-art conference room on the 38th floor of the US Bancorp Tower. Seminars are complimentary. Participants qualify for (1) Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credit. To register, please use the links below or call us at 503-226-2966. Seating is limited, so be sure to contact us soon!


Estate Planning in the Digital Age: Virtual Assets

Thursday, September 27, 2012
7:30 – 9:00 A.M.
at Samuels Yoelin Kantor LLP offices
Light refreshments will be served

Presented by Victoria D. Blachly and Michael D. Walker, P.C.

What happens to your Facebook account when you die? What about your email and online bank accounts? We’ll discuss these questions, analyze different user-and-online-provider relationships and review recent legislative progress in these areas. We’ll also cover the Virtual Asset Instruction Letter and analyze several cloud-based options for storing account log-in directions and passwords.

To register for this seminar, contact events@samuelslaw.com or call us at 503-226-2966.

Upcoming Seminars:
          Oct 11 – Famous and infamous Estates
          Nov 8 – Estate Planning for new parents
 

Oregon Legislative Proposal About Virtual Assets in the News

 

While we are alive and competent, access to and possession of "virtual assets" (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Flickr accounts) and information poses no legal problems. However, at the death or incompetence of the owner, the fiduciary (personal representative, conservator or trustee) may find his or her authority under Oregon law non-existent or unclear. One example includes Karen Williams, a Portland teacher who was blocked from her 22-year-old son’s Facebook account after Facebook learned he had been killed in a motorcycle accident.

SYK attorneys Victoria Blachly, Jeff Cheyne and Michael Walker are heading up the Oregon State Bar’s virtual assets work group, which has drafted a legislative proposal for statutory changes. Victoria was recently interviewed on FOX-12 (Fox affiliate) about the uncertainty surrounding personal assets when we die or become incapacitated.

Click here to read more blog posts about virtual assets.
 

SYK Attorney Victoria Blachly Discusses Virtual Assets with KATU’s Problem-Solver

When it comes to digital assets, most people think of online banking and other financial accounts. However, virtual assets also include personal data such as family photos, videos, Facebook wall messages and other valued content. So much of our lives is now documented and stored online, and yet there is a lot of uncertainty about what happens to these personal assets when we die or become incapacitated.

Samuels Yoelin Kantor attorney Victoria Blachly is chairing the Oregon State Bar Virtual Assets Work Group that has developed a draft legislative proposal for statutory changes. She recently appeared on KATU (ABC affiliate) to speak on this issue.

www.katu.com/news/problemsolver/Oregon-working-to-protect-your-social-media-afterlife-146397005.html

A “TED Talk” on Virtual Assets

 

 

 

In a recent "TED talk," Adam Ostrow, a journalist and editor in chief of Mashable, an online news site dedicated to covering digital culture, social media and technology, discusses a fascinating topic that relates to the "Virtual Assets" issues that we’ve previously written about on WealthLawBlog.com.

In his short lecture, Mr. Ostrow states that "today we’re all creating this incredibly rich digital archive that’s going to live in the cloud indefinitely, years after we’re gone. And I think that’s going to create some incredibly intriguing opportunities for technologists.” He then discusses how technology is forever changing the manner in which our virtual existence continues after we die.

As technology continues to change the manner in which we humans interact with our many forms of “virtual assets,” the law will continue to develop in potentially unpredictable ways. In the context of our estate planning, I believe the key component for effective planning will be careful organization of our virtual assets and arranging for that information to be placed in the right hands when we’re gone.
 

ALI-ABA CLE – Virtual Assets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those of you in the Chicago area on July 14-15, Samuels Yoelin Kantor attorney Victoria Blachly will be speaking at the ALI-ABA CLE Representing Estate and Trust Beneficiaries and Fiduciaries.

Her topic is incorporating virtual assets and online information into an estate plan:

  1. What are virtual assets?
  2. Integrating virtual assets into your estate plan.
  3. Creating a VAIL (Virtual Asset Instruction Letter).
  4. Consider who should receive your virtual assets.
  5. Use caution when dealing with commercial services to hold your virtual assets.

SAMUELS YOELIN KANTOR SEMINAR SERIES

We are pleased to announce a new seminar series that will keep our clients and colleagues informed on recent developments and industry best practices. The seminars take place in our beautiful, state-of-the-art conference room on the 38th floor of the US Bancorp Tower. Seminars are complimentary and include a boxed lunch.

To register, contact events@samuelslaw.com or call us at 503-226-2966. Seating is limited, so be sure to contact us soon!
 


VIRTUAL ASSETS
WEDNESDAY JUNE 1, 2011, 12 NOON – 1:30 P.M.

Presented by Victoria D. Blachly and Michael D. Walker, P.C.

Virtual assets include emails, digital images, electronic financial statements, social media accounts, web sites, and e‐banking related accounts, among others. Many of these assets are assets that are generally transferred through a client’s will or trust.

As more of our population goes online, we have seen a rising number of cases surrounding the use (and abuse) of these assets.

This seminar will outline the policies employed by some common email and media providers, talk about where these assets fit in our clients’ estate plans and point out some specific areas of concern. We will conclude by talking about the pros and cons of some of the different “online vaults” that are available to clients.


ASSET PROTECTION
WEDNESDAY JUNE 8, 2011, 12 NOON – 1:30 P.M.


Presented by Edward "Ted" L. Simpson

The legal landscape across which creditors chase debtors is ever changing. What worked 10 years ago does not necessarily work today.

This has resulted in three categories of asset protection strategies: those that are readily identifiable and either do or do not work according to established law; those that are promoted as asset protection strategies, but about which the law is not settled; and those that are new and unique, have not been identified as asset protection strategies, and which have not been the subject of studied attempts to pierce. In this seminar we will take a thoughtful and practical look at how asset protection planning is approached and how strategies are developed, both broadly and in specific situations.


INCLUDING PETS IN YOUR ESTATE PLAN
WEDNESDAY JUNE 29, 2011, 12 NOON – 1:30 P.M.


Presented by Glen Goland

This seminar will discuss Oregon’s long history on the forefront of animal rights and will cover the short and long‐term questions that pet owners should consider when preparing their estate plans.


To register for any of these seminars, contact events@samuelslaw.com or call us at 503-226-2966. Seating is limited, so be sure to contact us soon! 

Accessibility