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from the Backups-vs-Bitrot-vs-Businesses-vs-Beliefs dept.
What happens to our online lives after we die?
Over the course of the next few decades, there will be more and more dead people on Facebook. In fact, according to some estimates, as early as 2060 the number of deceased users' accounts will exceed the number of accounts with a living person behind them.
But people's "digital afterlives" extend far beyond Facebook. When a 21st century citizen dies, they often leave behind a trove of posts, private messages, and personal information on everything from Twitter to online bank records. Who owns this data, and whose responsibility is it to protect the privacy of the deceased? Faheem Hussain, a social scientist at Arizona State University in Tempe, has spent the past few years peering into the murky waters of how people, platforms, and governments manage the digital lives we leave behind.
Hussain gave a presentation on our digital legacies today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which publishes Science. We caught up with Hussain to talk about why online platforms should encourage people to plan ahead for their imminent deaths, whether you have a right to privacy after you die, and the strange new culture of digital mourning.
The article proceeds to investigate answers to these questions:
[...]Q: What does a typical 21st century digital legacy look like?
[...]Q: Why should people take this seriously?
[...]Q: Do deceased people still have a right to privacy?
[...]Q: Google has an opt-in setting that allows you to have your data deleted once you pass away. What do you suggest people do to set their digital accounts in order before they die?
[...]Q: How should we interact with the dead on social media?
[Ed. note: We here at SoylentNews have already experienced this with the passing of MichaelDavidCrawford who, with great foresight specified his wishes for his writings and publications. As a tribute to his active participation here, a collection of approximately twenty community-submitted statements of his have been immortalized as 'fortunes' on this site.--martyb]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Zinho on Monday February 17 2020, @05:02PM (7 children)
There's another aspect to this question, namely, how does the estate pass on its digital assets to the next generation?
Over our lives many of us (well, normal people that buy from typical online retailers, anyhow) collect a variety of purchased media from the likes of the Apple store, Steam, and others. Theoretically, despite many of these having digital restrictions enforced, access to them can be passed on to the purchaser's children (perhaps a single custodian?) via transferring the account credentials. Pseudonymous account name + updated email and credit card = digital inheritance.
The trick here is whether there is language in the purchase contract specifying "life of the purchaser" or something similar. I imagine that there is a disconnect between how the purchaser feels about this issue (first sale doctrine FTW) and how the media publisher feels (limited license, rent seeking); this may well go to the courts within our lifetimes.
Of course, those of us who insist on DRM-free media to begin with will never have this problem; instead, they'll have the problem of **AA gestapo thugs showing up on their doorsteps insisting on the deletion of any media whose purchase cannot be proven. Welcome to the future.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday February 17 2020, @05:32PM (4 children)
"Dead people don't hold copyright."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @06:09PM (1 child)
Disney and friends paid to have that changed long ago.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday February 17 2020, @07:26PM
I think he was referring to **AA thugs showing up on his doorstep making demands. It's a pity that not every place has "stand your ground" laws. I would probably go to jail if I was to start shooting **AA thugs. :)
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 18 2020, @05:07PM (1 child)
Corporations never die. Copyright length is life of the corporation plus 90 years. Or infinity plus 90 years.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 18 2020, @06:56PM
Exactly! Therefore they can never be authors, and thus cannot hold copyright, since they never create anything, they only whore for it to be created. And, corporations can die. We just cease all the holdings and assets, liquidate depts and stockholders. Easy peasy!
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday February 17 2020, @11:49PM
> The trick here is whether there is language in the purchase contract specifying "life of the purchaser" or something similar.
The question is more, are there any digital platforms that don't include this text in their contract? Because they should fire their lawyers and hire new ones.
In any case, I don't believe contracts are implicitly passed down to inheritors, the same as most forms of debt, and you would have to sue the company in civil court anyway, which no one is going to do over a few thousand bucks worth of digital media. Thus, your contract/license to access the media ends when you die (or the company dies).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 18 2020, @07:22PM
It's simple. You put your passwords in your will as well as who you prefer gets which accounts. That's it. Alive person logs in and does whatever they want with the account.