What happens to your K library when you croak? It must self destruct.

[CINERAMAX IOPH]

No am not contemplating departure but I was thinking of selling my library of 1935 titles to a client and start a more compact one for myself since I only use it to sample demo scripts, after all I have sunk over $70,000 in it. So I called Luke and he informed me that the license does not grant transfer rights. Seems a bit unreasonable, can some attorneys opine whether it could be considered something one's children's can inherit, or held by a trustee? Any thoughts would be interesting.

 

[josh]

interesting question, i await hearing a definitive answer. i'd hope that one's estate/survivors can legally inherit title to the store-purchased content.

 

[Substance]

Interesting matter indeed. Does this mean my account is forever tied to the exact email address I initially registered?

 

[JohnJ]

Interesting matter indeed. Does this mean my account is forever tied to the exact email address I initially registered?

No, I have updated to a different email address in the past.

John

 

[SimonSays]

The store does seem to allow a user to change name, email, password and payment options. So from a technical standpoint, it appears it's possible to transfer the account to another person.

 

[CINERAMAX IOPH]

I think the catch might be upon signing the license that has to be signed to activate one of 5 systems.

Maybe I should deactivate my own local account and go through activation, I might try that and sign Penelope Glamour, that would settle the practicality of the transfer... .

 

[TrackZ]

It might not apply according to the terms of service, but I would expect you could execute a "transfer" just fine in terms of handing an account over to someone.

I do wonder about digital rights as well for real legality as I've amassed libraries of content in all kinds of places - iTunes, K, comiXology, Kindle, Xbox, Steam, and more. In the event of my death, I presume my kids as future adults would be taking those accounts with name/address/email/credit card changes.

 

[Oldred]

It might not apply according to the terms of service, but I would expect you could execute a "transfer" just fine in terms of handing an account over to someone.

I do wonder about digital rights as well for real legality as I've amassed libraries of content in all kinds of places - iTunes, K, comiXology, Kindle, Xbox, Steam, and more. In the event of my death, I presume my kids as future adults would be taking those accounts with name/address/email/credit card changes.

Pretty certain most of those licenses will be valid for the lifetime of the user only and are non-transferable in any circumstances, including death. I seem to remember there being a big fuss made when that first dawned on apple users years back but there was never a positive answer. It's been a good while since then but I doubt it's resolvable 'legally' and will rely on blind eye workarounds or not work at all. Physical media deteriorates over time too and so there isn't really an answer there. Add to that, as player technology moves on, that maintaining the players themselves becomes a challenge. Digitally, another issue may well be that will any company remain as the same legal entity for that long to even sustain and fulfil that license. Basically we are all doomed and best get on enjoying those movies now

Most of us have the collecting bug and are troubled by this thought for a while and then get back to finding the next deal/movie to buy.

 

[cinelife]

Unless something in the law has changed in the past year or so, @Oldred is correct, digital content from all providers (to my knowledge) is not transferrable. If the terms of service or usage indicate that a license is not transferrable, then that will preclude any transfer, including by "will" in the event of the death of the licensee.

Jim

 

[DmitryB]

It's definitely been a highly debated and sticky issue for years. I remember not just with iTunes, but when Amazon first released the Kindle, people realizing their digital books had copyright protection on them and they couldn't share with friends. I'm sure somewhere in the fine print it's all laid out, but who reads the fine print! (I certainly don't.)

 

[alexbeans]

It might not apply according to the terms of service, but I would expect you could execute a "transfer" just fine in terms of handing an account over to someone.

I do wonder about digital rights as well for real legality as I've amassed libraries of content in all kinds of places - iTunes, K, comiXology, Kindle, Xbox, Steam, and more. In the event of my death, I presume my kids as future adults would be taking those accounts with name/address/email/credit card changes.

I see that you mentioned Comixology. How is that going for you? I probably sunk over $50k into Comixology and after Amazon screwed up the User Interface and integrated it with Kindle and the Amazon store, it caused me to stop buying digital comics altogether. For shame because I have over 37,000 comics "purchased" over a decade.

 

[Mr.Poindexter]

"Hey kids, sorry your dad died. Just an FYI, we will be deleting all your Disney, Marvel and other films that you still watch in the house you shared with him tomorrow. If you want to buy them again at full retail, please click on this link..."

I imagine that would not go over very well.

 

[Noah Winter]

I wonder if a trust could be an owner of your K System or if it has to be a natural person? Could create perpetuity that way maybe.

 

[thrillcat]

The Apple Family accounts also blur the lines. My son is in the family account with access. When he has kids they’ll be added too. So the movies are licensed to the family, which could in theory go on for generations.

 

[Oldred]

The Apple Family accounts also blur the lines. My son is in the family account with access. When he has kids they’ll be added too. So the movies are licensed to the family, which could in theory go on for generations.

I haven’t looked into it and with the furore surrounding the issue it’s possible Apple sought to address the issue but it will depend how the terms are written. My guess is that a family account is in a single persons name - I.e. that content is licensed to you only still but you are allowed to then nominate family members to access and share it. So when the owner dies the license goes with them still. I very much doubt that each member ‘owns’ the content. Just the right to access it while subscription continues and the main member survives.

I can see why they would want to avoid the minefield of making content fully transferable but addressing the inheritance aspect feels important and an issue that will surely grow as time passes.

 

[cinelife]

I have some additional thoughts on the subject of system/content transfers that I will address with K's leadership shortly. We'll see how this all plays out going forward.

Jim

 

[TrackZ]

I see that you mentioned Comixology. How is that going for you? I probably sunk over $50k into Comixology and after Amazon screwed up the User Interface and integrated it with Kindle and the Amazon store, it caused me to stop buying digital comics altogether. For shame because I have over 37,000 comics "purchased" over a decade.

I too have a lot with them. I find in the last couple years though, I buy a lot less on comiXology and just use Marvel Unlimited and DC Infinite. I made some videos about it for the YouTube channel. Amazon really messed up comiXology a TON, but they are coming out of the terrible phase and the service is actually getting better over this year. We'll see how it goes.

I'm in for Kindle for me e-reading, so I'm not totally against my digital books and digital comics being "together", but they really need to cater to comic readers with features and presentation that comics demand differently than books. Kind of like my big ask to K, it's all about UI and features. They make or break the experience of using the platform.

 

[TrackZ]

The Apple Family accounts also blur the lines. My son is in the family account with access. When he has kids they’ll be added too. So the movies are licensed to the family, which could in theory go on for generations.

I wonder about that too eventually, but Apple only lets you add 5 family members so it won't scale well with large families or across too many generations. Then what happens when your multiple kids have their own families. I expect we will see some kind of generational features come along as this becomes more and more of a thing. Our generation is about the first to really have accumulated lots of "digitally" owned content.

 

[thrillcat]

I wonder about that too eventually, but Apple only lets you add 5 family members so it won't scale well with large families or across too many generations. Then what happens when your multiple kids have their own families. I expect we will see some kind of generational features come along as this becomes more and more of a thing. Our generation is about the first to really have accumulated lots of "digitally" owned content.

I think it will shake out in the next generation. There aren't enough people thinking about it yet. It will likely either end up with Congress legislating mandatory transferability or digital libraries completely dying off because the next generation won't care at all about ownership.

 

[cinelife]

I've been informed that K will be working to clarify the legal side of the question presented in this thread, so I would expect an answer at some point in the near future.

To those that asked, yes, I'm an attorney (and my wife is a contracts attorney), but neither of us provides any legal advice to K on any subject, and certainly not regarding the question presented in this thread. I do have a legal opinion, but it's irrelevant in this case because I'm not skilled in this area of the law.

Jim