Inheriting 'virtual worth' from lacks rules

As debate continues over calls to update China's inheritance rules, experts say the digital age has produced another puzzle to solve: the growing amount of "virtual worth" people are now leaving behind.

China has witnessed a boom in Internet use in the last decade, with the number of users reaching roughly 400 million. Many have e-mail accounts, use instant messaging and social media, and play online games.

However, the question of who can gain access to the information stored on these accounts - so-called e-property - after a user has died is causing headaches for relatives, companies and authorities.

Cheng Yi, a judge specializing in inheritance cases at Chaoyang District People's Court in Beijing, explained that the current Inheritance Law does not include e-property, such as photos and videos, which means the next of kin has no right to them.

"Generally, we (judges) see online accounts or e-mail inboxes as a service involving private information, which means they are not regarded as property and are not inheritable," she said.

"As there is no specific article in the law, courts can only base rulings on the terms of the contracts agreed between customers and service providers."

In addition, she said, Web companies should take measures to prevent disputes over the inheritance of e-property, even though such cases are still rare.

"If the owner of a store on Taobao (China's largest online marketplace) passes away, his or her relatives cannot inherit it and use it to carry on trading," Cheng said. "Instead, the store will be closed, under the company's regulations." If the store is popular, that family may lose money, she added.

Tencent and Sina, two of China's biggest Internet companies, said they have no regulations on giving relatives access to the accounts of dead loved ones.

In October, Tencent refused a request by Wang Fang for a password to access the QQ e-mail account of her husband Xu Yang after his death in a traffic accident. Wang, from Shenyang in Liaoning province, had said she wanted to save photographs and letters that recorded the couple's happy marriage.

"It's a complicated issue because we have a duty to protect our customers' privacy," said a Tencent publicity official who did not wish to be identified.

According to the regulations of Sina's highly popular micro blog service, online accounts are deleted if they go unused for more than 90 days, except for celebrities and people with great social importance.

"We've never considered creating a rule on e-property inheritance," said a Sina publicity officer who also did not want to be identified. "What we do is based on the agreed contract."

Neither publicity officer could provide statistics on how many requests they receive from people attempting to access the accounts of deceased people.

However, the Sina employee said that the company agreed last year to let relatives of a couple killed in Wenzhou train crash on the July 23 take over their micro blog, which had been set up to record the growth of their baby girl.

Liu Honghui, a Beijing attorney specializing in online theft and copyright cases, said it is high time e-property was included in China's laws and regulations.

He mentioned a case involving virtual property in Haikou, Hainan province, in 2010. Hackers stole an online gamer's "virtual sword" (a weapon used during gameplay) worth 2,000 yuan ($310) but the police rejected his case because there was no law that dealt with such a case.

"It's necessary to make a judicial interpretation and I believe it would be useful in dealing with similar cases," Liu said, adding that interpretation is faster than legislation.

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn