Want to leave your digital music to your children? Sorry, it dies with you

. . . and so do those precious film and book collections

MORE than £30 billion of films, music and books bought through iTunes and Amazon could vanish when their owners die.

Where once a relative could bequeath their precious book library or Beatles collection to a loved one, this is not strictly possible with downloaded digital files because they are not owned by the purchaser.

Matthew Strain, partner at solicitors Strain-Keville, says: ‘It boils down to this: you don’t have the same rights as with print books, DVDs and CDs. Rather, you own a licence to use the digital files — so when you die, they expire with you.’

Downloading films, books and music has boomed in the past few years, with users able to put these files on iPads, MP3 players, smartphones and home computers

We store close to £30 billion worth of media online, according to research from Rackspace, a web data storage company.

In the UK, online services such as iTunes, Google Play and Amazon Kindle have boosted sales of video and music. Digital sales of video, such as pop music videos and TV series, rocketed by 40 pc in 2013.

In total, consumers bought £5.4 billion of digital music, video and games last year, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association. Sales of digital blockbuster movies were up by 50 pc, according to industry analyst the Entertainment Group.

But as downloading becomes more popular, and sales of traditional paper books, vinyl records, CDs and DVDs decline, an increasing number of families risk losing thousands when a loved one passes away, unless they have given them the password for the accounts used.

This is because the right to listen to the tracks, watch the movies or read the books rests only with the account holder. The files cannot be transferred to someone else.

As a result, if you’re writing your will, you need to think about how to deal with any media collections.

Juliet Davies, a retired nurse from Leeds, has spent nearly £1,400 on Disney movies with iTunes in the past 18 months. She bought them for her three grandchildren to watch, but doesn’t want them to be lost when she dies.

She says: ‘If I’d bought them as DVDs, there wouldn’t be a problem and they could carry on enjoying them. However, because they’re online, they’ll expire with me; it seems an unfair deal.’

Apple, owner of iTunes, and Amazon, which runs Kindle, restrict all songs, films and ebooks to devices used by the account holder.

The companies say they make this clear in their small print. Buried in Apple’s terms and conditions, it says: ‘ You agree that the iTunes Products are provided to you by way of a licence only. This means you cannot legally bequeath your iTunes library.’

And Amazon’s terms say: ‘You do not acquire any ownership rights in the software or music content.’

Music, TV, books and video games which can be stored on consoles are all rapidly becoming part of our online legacy.

The pitfalls are starting to be picked up by solicitors. Jonathan Silverman, partner at Silverman Sherliker law firm, says: ‘Many people are beginning to realise they have invested a lot of money in online media such as films and books — and, naturally, they want to be able to pass it on.

‘The law takes a very long time to catch up with technology; and the whole digital rights industry is very, very fast moving.

‘Yet the law is not particularly clear about what can and can’t be bequeathed, so it’s difficult for solicitors to advise clients on what to do.’

There are ways round the rules — but you’ll need to ensure your family can get access to your online passwords.

With Apple, it is possible to allow others to keep on watching iTunes films you own after death — as long as they are also customers.

The firm lets five different computers watch films tied to a single account as long as the right password is typed in.

And looking after online passwords has become big business. Companies such as Cirrus now offer a service where, when you die, a named ‘guardian’ will be given all your passwords to various online accounts.

They will then be able to allocate particular account passwords to certain individuals — allowing them to use various online material.