After an American soldier died in Iraq five years ago, his father wanted to save copies of his son's e-mails sent through a Yahoo account. But the Internet company's privacy policy allowed access by only the soldier, triggering a legal fight.
The case highlights a growing discussion concerning what happens when the owner of a password-protected online account dies. To whom does the account belong? Can digital assets be passed on to heirs?
"If you use a computer, you need to have an estate plan that deals with digital assets and paperless transactions," said Lawrence H. Heller, an estate lawyer in Santa Monica, Calif. "People need to think about how to give their heirs access to information that may be stored online, but without the risk of unauthorized access."
Many important documents and personal treasures once kept in file cabinets and safe-deposit boxes are now stored electronically. Photographs, videos, music, letters and book manuscripts that might have monetary value -- or be priceless to loved ones -- often are saved exclusively on computer drives.
Legal disputes involving digital assets are relatively rare, but as the computer-literate population ages, after-death lawsuits are likely to become more common. "What we are trying to do is anticipate and avoid the problem," Heller said.
Until now, estate planning has primarily focused on tangible assets such as real estate, autos and jewelry and intangible assets such as stocks and bonds.
In exceptional cases, artists and musicians face issues involving copyright, trademark or patent law. But now, anyone who owns a computer could end up dealing with those issues, too.
"If I have created something in the digital universe, it's not free game. I may have a hard time protecting it, but I own it," said Steve Seel, an estate and trust lawyer in Pittsburgh.
Sometimes, heirs don't even know these things exist. As more companies move away from paper, online bank accounts, investment accounts, insurance polices, time shares and frequent-flier miles might become trickier to locate and access if someone dies without telling heirs of their existence.
According to a recent study by HSBC Direct, 49 percent of the online population conducts most of its banking via the Internet.
Meanwhile Internet blogs, as well as MySpace, e-mail and Facebook accounts, could be owned by an even greater percentage of the population.
In a growing number of cases, checking a deceased person's computer or other digital devices is becoming a crucial step in executing an estate.
Executors of estates often get special privileges giving them access to most assets. But privacy laws might prevent Internet companies from releasing username and password information to executors.
If a digital asset is stored on someone else's server, ownership becomes especially complicated. Yahoo mail, for example, has a provision in its user agreement that gives the account owner no right to transfer the ownership. All rights are terminated with the owner's death, and all content can be deleted.
The rules were tested in the high-profile case involving the father of Lance Cpl. Justin Ellsworth, a combat engineer with the Marine Corps who died in Iraq in November 2004. The two men were in constant e-mail contact during the deployment, and when the son died, the father wanted the e-mails from his son's account for sentimental reasons.
But the son had changed his password a few weeks before his death and had not shared it with his dad, who lives in Detroit. It took a five-month legal case to work out an arrangement to release copies of the e-mails.
