Archive Access & Succession
A simple guide to making sure your creative work can be found, verified and passed on after you die. Everything lives in your own cloud drive, so the right person just needs access to it. This is general information, not legal advice.
Everything you protect with IP Vault is kept in one place: the ip-vault/ folder inside your own personal cloud drive (Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive). IP Vault does not store your files on its own servers.
That means, when you are gone, the person handling your estate only needs to be able to open that folder. Nothing is locked away on a server.
Three Simple Steps
Everything you protect is saved in one place: the ip-vault/ folder inside your own cloud drive. Make a note of which cloud drive you use, so the person handling your estate knows where to look.
The simplest way is to use your cloud drive's normal share option to give your executor or solicitor access to the ip-vault/ folder. You share the folder, not your password.
If you would rather not share the folder, write your login details in a private letter kept alongside your will and hand it to your solicitor — never inside the will itself.
Once they have access, your executor or solicitor can open the folder and find your protected works together with their timestamp certificates.
Those certificates prove when each work existed — which is what you need if a work ever has to be identified or claimed later.
Your will becomes a public document once it is handled by the courts, so anything written inside it can be seen by the public. Never write passwords into your will. Instead, keep your login details in a private letter stored alongside your will and give that letter to your solicitor or a trusted person.
⚖️ Copyright & Your Will
Copyright is property. You can leave it to someone in your will, or it passes to your heirs automatically under the law.
Because your files live in your own cloud account, anyone you share the folder with can access everything. IP Vault never holds a master password or keeps your files on its servers.
📜 Wet Signatures & Evidentiary Support
Certain legal instruments — most notably wills, codicils, and certain property deeds — have strict statutory execution formalities requiring physical paper and wet-ink signatures witnessed in person. Digital timestamping does not replace or satisfy these statutory "wet" signature requirements.
While a timestamped digital copy cannot override mandatory execution formalities, it provides vital supportive evidence in disputes. If the veracity, date, or physical integrity of a wet document is questioned — such as allegations of fraudulent tampering, replaced pages, lost originals, or disputed draft dates — the cryptographic time-anchor independently proves the exact state and content of the document as of that date.