

Donate your intellectual property in case of death - shard
http://evan-roth.com/public_domain_donor.php

======
jackowayed
I don't really want to sign that. I'd need a way to make exceptions.

Let's say that I'm working on a startup that hasn't become a company yet with
someone when I die. I'm not sure exactly how the IP legalities work, but I
assume that he would be able to keep working on it, possibly under the
condition that he give some of gains to my heirs.

But if my half of the IP enters into the public domain, my cofounder would
lose his cofounder and at least have questions of whether much of the work we
had done to that point had to be released.

Plus, I really don't want anyone to have incentive to kill me because they
want that great book I wrote or that great piece of proprietary software that
I developed and own to enter the public domain.

~~~
lincolnq
The "way to make exceptions" is to incorporate your startup and sign an IP
agreement with it.

~~~
jackowayed
Yeah, but what if we haven't gotten there yet? What if it was a side-project
that we now know will turn into a startup but hasn't gotten to the stage of
incorporation?

I may not say, "Oh, yeah, 20 years ago I signed something putting all my IP in
the public domain if I die. We should incorporate now just in case something
happens to me." I may not remember, especially if I'm hacking 12 hrs/day on
the startup.

------
markup
May I suggest you to change "IP" in the title to "Intellectual Property"? It
is a nice initiative, but the title is a bit cryptic and may get ignored

~~~
jackchristopher
I thought the article was going to be akin to "My Death Page", but that you
have an permanent IP pointing towards web space for "hedge stone".

------
dfox
This is great idea but I'm not sure that this implementation is really going
to work.

------
Dilpil
Isn't this a bit meaningless unless we have some sort of repository?

------
noss
Donate your IP in case you're murdered.

