GRAVE ROBBERS: How online obituary firms steal and monetize your family story, with or without your knowledge, leaving you with no rights or recourse

                                                                                                   by Matthew Frey

This is the follow-up to Dead Man's Party, which explored the funeral industry.

   

    There is a quiet war going on in America, with hundreds of millions of dollars per year at stake. Nobody is being killed, thank goodness. They're already dead.
    The battle is over which online company will get fabulously wealthy exploiting the anguish of those left behind, by selling them colorful, compelling interactive obituaries that portray the grand and beautiful lives that their loved ones lived. If you don't buy one for your family member, they put one online anyway. They feature it prominently in search engines, and urge "visitors" to buy tokens of sympathy in your honor.
    These are cynical, profiteering schemes -- yet another aspect of our notoriously predatory “death industry,” which takes such ghoulish advantage of people‘s grief. They underhandedly wrest ownership of our loved ones' lives and legacies, claiming rights to use their stories to make money, in any manner whatsoever, forever. How can we allow this IDENTITY THEFT to go on without a legal challenge?

Obit site's CEO claims heavenly motives

  

We received a cordial email last night from the CEO of Legacy.com, the online obituary site that is affiliated with 124 of the country's 150 largest newspapers. It features obituaries and Guest Books for more than two-thirds of people who die in the United States. In total, it services 800 newspapers in North America, Europe and Australia.

    As our previous posts have noted, Legacy not only charges you for access to the obituaries you have written and paid handsomely to have published. It also -- without your knowledge or consent -- claims a sweeping array of rights with respect to your intellectual property and to details about your family. Its business model, plain and simple, is to make money from the writing, the stories and the grief of millions of people while giving NOTHING in return.

    Judging from the email sent by Legacy's CEO, Stopher Bartol, either he is stupid or he thinks that we are.

Reclaiming Our Legacies: a progress report

    Thanks to those of you who have offered financial support for our legal challenge of the "terms of use" agreement imposed by Legacy.com, the online site that handles obituaries for the vast majority of U.S. newspapers. I will be happy to contribute the relatively modest fees needed to proceed, and we have found a lawyer who is excited to be involved. He will represent us on a pro bono basis. He retired just a few months ago from a New York firm, where his primary focus was estate law, but doing First Amendment and intellectual property law is what launched his career, and he said he is "psyched" at the prospect

Controversy over obituary site takes on a life of its own

 

    Since my first post on February 22, I have received 192 emails from around the country regarding the fraudulent and predatory policies of Legacy.com, the online obituary web site. I answered them for awhile, but I apologize for not being able to keep up.

    The controversy has become national thanks to Jim Romenesko, who graciously placed a link to my coverage on the widely read media site Poynter.org. 
    And it is a national issue,

Obituary site's lawyers ponder a grave dilemma

   One of my darling, ever-vigilant whistle-blower elves -- this one in Illinois -- has informed me that Legacy.com has retained a high-powered Chicago law firm to determine whether its so-called user agreement will hold up in court. I say 'so-called' because the user never agrees to the "agreement," and is unaware of the rights and privileges that Legacy is claiming with respect to its stash of millions of obituaries.

Good Heavens! Media One gives obituaries "eternal life"

Media One CEO Brent Low called Tuesday to say he had exceeded his own original intentions by extending the longtime 30-day limit for free online access to obituaries that have appeared in the two Salt Lake City dailies. "Forever" is the new limit. He had stated on Monday that he would immediately change the allotted time to one year as an initial step in reforming obit policy, but he decided not to bother with incremental change, and to go all the way right now. I expressed my support, but reminded him that the more serious issue is Legacy.com's unconscionable and illegal commandeering

"Tear Down This Wall," Media One tells obituary site

Brent Low, CEO of Media One Utah, has vowed to force Legacy.com to remove the paywall it has erected on its obituary site, and "if they don't, we'll find another vendor." As my earlier post noted, Legacy.com -- which gets 7 million hits per month -- not only charges for access after an initial 30-day period. It also claims comprehensive rights and privileges with respect to the obituaries themselves "in perpetuity."

Obituary web site buries your loved one a second time

   My father died on May 10, 2010. A couple of days later I submitted his obituary and paid over $800 for it to be published for one day in the Salt Lake Tribune, and to be posted on the Legacy.com web site.
    I was shocked and hurt several weeks later, when I went to "visit" my dad, to see that Legacy had shunted the obit behind a paywall. I was only permitted to see his picture and read the first two lines of a long obituary unless I paid Legacy for the privilege of having access to my own writing and my own father.