A widow wanted to take over her late husband’s digital assets and successfully sued various companies for it. The total amount involved was around 250,000 euros. She is unable to access her husband’s chat logs, as the court deemed them too personal.
A widow wanted to take over her late husband’s digital assets in China, including 5 bitcoins, a gaming account worth around 25,000 euros, and his social media profiles. In total, it involved financial values of about 250,000 euros.
However, the companies refused to transfer the digital assets to the widow. It was only after she filed a lawsuit that she won her case in most instances.
Court rules in favor of the widow, except for private chats
The court determined that digital assets with economic value – including cryptocurrencies, gaming accounts, and monetized online accounts – can be part of a deceased person’s estate. The court focused on the fact that these assets possessed an identifiable economic value and could generate or represent financial interests.
The court also rejected the platforms’ reference to standard clauses in their terms of service that aimed to exclude these inheritance claims.
What does she not have access to? Specifically, it concerns private chat logs. According to the court, these are closely tied to the personal identity of the deceased and thus inseparably linked to the deceased person. Therefore, the widow cannot inherit and take over these.
Many gamers now have a considerable collection of games on Steam. This raises the question for some users of whether it is possible to bequeath the entire library to another person. One player recently asked Valve whether it is possible to include the Steam account in his will. You can read more about this directly on MeinMMO: A user asks Valve if he can bequeath his many games on Steam – They respond
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