September - 2013 - issue > View Point
The Digital Estate
Parvez Anandam
CEO & Founder-Eterniam Inc
The world is dematerializing at an exciting pace. As Vaclav Smil points out, a "single iPhone replaces a camera, a compass, a map, an alarm clock, a telephone, and many other physical objects". The trend is clear: everything is becoming digital. The implications are profound.
You can own a physical compass. You can gift it to someone. You can bequeath it to an heir in your will. People are known to treasure their grandfather’s lovely compass. What can you do with an iPhone compass app? Precious little, besides use it yourself. Last year, the Daily Mail said that Bruce Willis worries about how to leave his iTunes music collection to his daughters. Whether real or made-up, that story struck a chord with many.
The concept of ownership of digital assets does exist. When you take a photo with your digital camera, you have a copyright in that work of authorship. You own the photo. It is what you do with it afterwards that is important. Say you upload that photo to Facebook. Under Facebook’s current Terms of Service (a binding legal contract), you grant Facebook “a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook.” Facebook can use your content or license it to others without having to ask you or pay you. Even though you still own the copyright, someone else can do what they want with your digital asset. To most people, loss of control means loss of ownership.
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