Your Second Life Will

OMG I have thought of this a lot in the last month. I had a RL heart attack last month and the first thing I thought of was my SL account. My rl assets are taken care of with a will. As the paramedics were picking me up off the floor I wanted to get my computer and take it with me. My daughter asked me *what about your on-line friends*. I wouldnt want to give someone my SL account but would love to be able to give them my assets. *blushes and hides her account from rl*

A friend of mine had a similar situation last week. His sl landlord, a very nice lady, leased property on a sim and sublet it to others. This woman died in RL. Of course she was not able to pay the owner of the sim his rent. One day we were sitting talking in the house and then with no warning, *poof* we wound up sitting on the ground. I IM'd the guy and told Him what happened and it was as if he really didnt care. All he could think of was the rent that he had lost in the past two weeks since she had died and that he said that he didn't know that she had. I kindly ripped him a new one.

This is a real sl situation and I think there should be a way to handle it. I have since talked to a few people that have told me they have had their SL friends die in RL just recently. I would love to be able to leave my sl assets to my dear sl friends. Why can't we? If they can modify our objects there should be a way also they can take our inventory and land. I am clueless on this one.

*/me prays that every one stays healthy and safe*

Kira

On the one hand, I'm glad that SL is there for people who otherwise have difficulty getting out and moving around. That's a huge benefit that is seldom mentioned. I'm so sorry to hear about about the difficulties of some of the members here.

I'm not sure LL would have to honor a bequest in a RL will, but I suspect that it doesn't matter. As a practical matter, making an exception to the TOS and transferring an account is better than trying to fight a court order, not to mention the potential bad PR. If your SL account is something that you really care about, there's no reason not to make it a part of your RL estate plan. You should specify what you want done with it, though. If you want it kept as a legacy, then leave it to someone SL-savvy enough to do that. If you just want the value out of it, leave it to someone who can sell it for top dollar and whom you trust to distribute the proceeds properly. I guess there is no reason why you can't put it in a trust and let the trustee deal with it, but you had better pick a trustee that understands SL. It will probably have to be appraised to determine the value. Ugh. It could get ugly.

Jesse - if the tube is the camera, don't sweat it, bro. The preparation is truly awful, but you won't die. The procedure itself is sort of a haze. You're so stoned, you won't care that there's a Nikon up your wazz, then you get to go home and lay around all day. It sucks, but it's not as bad as you think.

- also, I stopped by your shop the other day - Really amazing. The only reason I didn't buy anything was I wanted one of each. I have to narrow it down before I come back - gotta get rid of this crappy newb tattoo.

I'm another of those that wants everything sold and cashed out to my family who would benefit most from it. Land, clothes, furniture, all sold to lindens and cashed pulled out. Because of the value of this stuff (bite me if the stuff here has no real value, just bite me) I would want that turned right back to where it all came from, my family. My SL friends n family dont really need it anyway, they have their own junk in game they cant keep track of lol

This may not be legal in SL, but what if my will has a provision to have my account password delivered to the SL person of my choosing. At that point they could log into my SL account, then they would be able to transfer/sell my assets to however they choose including themselves.

This may be against the TOS, but how would LL ever know that I (living or dead) had given someone my password.

It seems to me unlikely that my Player would expire before I tire of SL and cash out forever. But if it *were* to suddenly happen, it would perhaps be nice to be able to auto-transfer my land and my L$ balance to my SL partner. The rest of my stuff? Meh. Not worth the hassle. Since my SL household is on solid terms with the sim owner, I am relatively certain that if I died IRL, he would offer my Partner the chance to continue owning my land, if my Partner could take over the maintenance payments.

My business partner in the textures that I sell would continue getting her share of the profits from my texture sales, even though my part would just become an L$ sink for my customers. I can't think of any way that I could switch that income stream to go to my SL Partner, other than her inheriting my avatar entirely, which I think would actually creep her out quite a bit.

My other serious business, Fox and Ground Construction Company, wouldn't exist without my cretaive efforts - the others who work for F&G just help out at my direction. So F&G would die with me.

My RL family doesn't play SL, and would have no use for stuff in SL. And without me creating new content, the ongoing income from my in-world vendors would be negligible in RL terms.

Thank you so much Jesseaitui, Danali, Jessica and Trout for your thoughts and prayers. My thoughts and prayers for everyone else that has a medical condition or disablity and am glad you have SL to help you through each day.



My question is would a simple letter from me work or would it have to be an actual "Last Will", the one you have to go to a lawyer to do? In which case I am sol cause Im stuck in bed and can't go out to do that. And since I can never get anyone on the phone (and I am suposed to have concierge level customer service) I can not get clarification on really what they will accept. I do not have RL assets so there is no need for a lawyer and Will, just my business in SL.

Zazas, if you know someone in SL you really trust, just send them your password and instructions and ask them to follow them when they get the news. It's a burden to them, but being an executor is always a burden. It's something we're willing to do for people we care about, so that while they're alive, they get the comfort of knowing that things will be taken care of when the time comes.

Just don't tell LL about it.

LL have good reasons for not wanting accounts shared. If an av does something bad, they want to know that the account holder is responsible. If they know who it is, they can take legal action if they want. If they don't, they can at least shut down the account and deny access to the account's properties. And yes, they do this!

So, when you share an account, be sure you know why you're doing it and what the repercussions are. For a newbie, there are hardly any so who cares if someone else helps set your av up. SL cares because that "helper" might be a griefer. YOU hopefully have better judgement than to let that kind of person at your account.

That's my advice, as someone who has no legal training!

Same here, this is what I'd want. Chances are all that would be happening would be someone occasionally cashing out as the business slowly dies off, but oh well.

It depends, and I can't actually answer that question. The first thing it depends on is what LL is willing to do out of the goodness of their hearts in the event a member dies. I would hope they wouldn't be jackasses and would just quietly honor the wishes of the deceased without complaint. I kind of get the feeling that they would. The cost of litigating the matter would almost certainly far out-strip the value of your SL assets, but if word got out, the bad press for LL would be ugly.

The second issue is jurisdictional. The laws of your state would dictate what does and does not count as a will, and what sort of authority it has. For the most part, if you consider the TOS to be a contract between you and LL (it's not, but it is sort of contract-like) the fact that you have died does not give your estate any more authority to do something than you had before your death. However, the law is not going to favor having an asset sit in your estate for eternity because it can't be transferred. It's a weird situation.

Practically, I think Learjeff has the solution. Legally, you need an attorney licensed to practice in your state to give you a real answer. Ethically, I expect LL would do the right thing in this sort of situation, but I don't expect them to publically admit it because they don't want to get started on a slippery slope by admitting that they would make an exception to this rule.

Someone already quoted the TOS, and LL apparently will honor valid wills to transfer the account with proper verification (typically, a death certificate and probably matching credit card info). That said, I don't care how much you trust anyone in this game - things can go sour at any given time, and then you'd have given them the keys to your SL existence and all your SL assets. If you are sincerely concerned about it - and you should be since we generally spend a lot of time here - you need to make sure that your real life family and friends have access to your computer and the passwords in the event of an emergency/death. And leave instructions as to what to do.

Even if i am dead, my stuff is still no transfer.....

I'd want my RL family to get all the land, because they could sell it (they'd have no other use for it, and they could totally cover funeral costs with it). My inventory? While there are lots of nice transferrable items in there, there's nothing you can't buy elsewhere... only interesting things are the notecards and the snapshots, and good luck sorting through all that crap.

I actually HAVE made arrangements with a RL friend who does not play Second Life to contact some specific SL friends in case anything serious were to happen to me. (I have out-of-SL contact information for my closest SL friends and family.) But that's as far as it goes.

I've always wanted to setup an avatar museum of all the avatars I've collected over the years when I die. Have a bot run my avatar, every now and then have it step out of the coffin and go for a walk, maybe have a night on the town... *wonders if laying the bot of a dead person counts as necrophilia*

Yes it does *shiver*

Well, hopefully you have a lot of time between now and then. If for no other reason, because you'll need time to develop one fabulous script to prevent vengeful ex-forum lurkers from ... um ... doing something bad to your (doubtless) cute necro self.

ive been thinking about this my entire sl life.
i reckon the best way to have a sl will is simply to leave your sl passwd and info with somebody in rl, and leave ll out of the loop.

Leave it to the person with the biggest heart I know to start a thread like this.

I would will all my transfer items and my Liome sim to you, Sarah.

I will also give those to you if LL raises mainland tier next year.

A few months ago, I was having probs with my then private island, and called the concierge line. While Harmony and I were investigating the problem I was having, I asked her this very question, in regards to lifetime account holders who disappear, yet hold land. She mentioned that LL has actually had land owners die and has had to work on a policy for relatives to claim the land. They do have one, but I didn't really ask for specifics.

So, if you are REALLY interested, you can ask the customer service, or if you're concierge, the concierge line. There is a policy out there. This isn't seat of the pants any longer.

They will have to pry my sim from my cold, dead hands. Oh wait...

I'm having ADSL installed to my casket with a 100year prepaid contract and I'm staying inworld

Well I was planning on leaving you Nerdagara and one of the Nerdo's. That and all my love and memories.

Damn, if that is the case, I will also leave you my sea turtle!

But seriously, I love you too. Best everyone knows it while I'm still alive.

so whens the wedding?

That was a much sweeter comment than the one I was expecting: "Get a skybox!"

I'd buy your bot av a scripted drink Strife.

For me, I'd leave everything to my friends and a few pics and special items to a certain someone who recently crushed me. Despite how I feel right now, I'll always have a spot in my heart for him *shrugs & sighs*

Dearly Darlings,

I had quite a shock today and this actually flashed through my purple haired head...
I defrag and things like that on Wednesdays when I can't get on SL. I am also sanding the stairs that go to the upstairs in the main house, not the kennel. I was in a hurry to see if SL was back up. It was not, so I started to scamper down the stairs to where the plugged in sander was and caught my foot in the cord and fell down a flight of stairs. I was thinking as I fell..."Shoot! V....... D.... and S... B..... can't get into me....." They are my RL younger sisters....the house in Green!" My Husband, Maneo Suntzu, was actually home today and on the phone with a Safety God when I fell. He made sure I was not too terribly broken and then gave me the OSHA speech. I am now purple all over. Old flesh and bruises don't look very attractive. I did not break a thing thank God...just banged up an ankle and a few tears. I guess this also has to go under the "When do you think your spending too much time here..." too

I'd let my sisters have me for transferable parts and the property and then be deleted.

Every Yours,

Mrs. Showdog Tiger