Digital legacy: Who inherits a creator's content?

Travel blogger Bowornthat “Hlun Solo” Pengsuk sits outside a white yurt, the traditional home of nomadic herders in Kyrgyzstan, during a trip to the Central Asian country on Oct 19, 2025. (Photo: ฮลุน โซโล่ (Hlun Solo) Facebook page) The death of the popular travel blogger Bowornthat Pengsuk, better known as Hlun Solo, has highlighted questions over what happens to a content creator’s digital assets after death, including copyright ownership and revenue generated from online platforms.Bowornthat, whose death at age 27 was confirmed in Georgia this week, built one of Thailand’s largest travel content communities, with 1.1 million YouTube subscribers, 3.4 million Facebook followers and 1.6 million TikTok followers. His case has drawn attention to the legal status of digital content and the procedures heirs must follow to manage accounts and receive future platform revenue. Among the major social media platforms, YouTube publicly provides guidance on handling deceased users’ accounts. Comparable information on similar procedures was not available from TikTok or Meta for this issue. YouTube process According to support information from Google, the parent company of YouTube, immediate family members or authorised representatives may request the closure of a deceased user’s Google account where appropriate. In certain circumstances, Google may also provide content from the deceased user’s account. Google said its primary responsibility is to protect users’ information and privacy. It does not provide passwords or login credentials, and every request is reviewed individually. For heirs seeking revenue from a deceased creator’s monetised YouTube account, Google requires: A court-certified will A scanned copy of a government-issued identification card or driver’s licence The deceased person’s death certificate, and Any additional supporting documents. The payment claim can only be submitted once. After approval, all future revenue generated by the monetised YouTube channel will be deposited into the newly designated payment account. Rights generally pass to heirs Dhiraphol Suwanprateep, an adjunct law lecturer at Bangkok University, said a deceased creator’s proprietary rights, including copyright and the contractual right to receive revenue under a platform agreement, generally form part of the creator’s estate and pass to heirs under the applicable law of succession. However, he said the more difficult issue is not ownership of those rights but how they are exercised. While heirs may inherit the legal entitlement to the creator’s assets and accrued or future revenue, digital platforms typically require their own verification procedures before recognising heirs or estate representatives, granting account access or releasing payments. These procedures are intended to confirm that the person making the claim has legal authority to act on behalf of the deceased. The verification process differs by platform and jurisdiction. Depending on platform policies, heirs may need to submit documents such as a death certificate, probate order, letters testamentary, letters of administration, a court appointment of an estate administrator or executor, proof of heirship, notarised declarations or other official documents. Some platforms may also require identity verification or additional compliance reviews before processing payments or transferring account administration. Platform agreements Mr Dhiraphol said platform agreements also remain relevant. Although heirs generally inherit the creator’s contractual rights, they do so subject to the terms and conditions governing the creator’s relationship with the platform. These terms may regulate account administration, monetisation, payment procedures and the platform’s licence to use the content. As a result, while contractual terms do not necessarily prevent rights from passing to heirs, they may determine how those rights are exercised in practice. He said three legal issues ultimately determine who receives the financial benefits generated by a deceased creator’s content: succession law, which determines who inherits the estate; copyright law, which governs ownership of the creative works; and the contractual terms and operational policies of the platform, which determine how inherited rights are recognised and implemented. “The legal position is generally straightforward: the creator’s proprietary rights, including the right to receive platform revenue, ordinarily pass to the heirs as part of the estate,” he said. “The real legal issue is not inheritance, but implementation,” he added. “Each platform has its own contractual procedures for verifying who is legally authorised to act on behalf of the deceased and to receive payments. “In practice, succession law determines who inherits the rights, while the platform’s terms determine how those rights can be exercised.” Copyright is part of an estate Auramon Supthaweethum, director-general of the Department of Intellectual Property (DIP), said copyright in Hlun Solo’s YouTube videos will pass to his legal heirs if he did not leave a will. She said YouTube videos qualify as audiovisual works under Section 4 of Thailand’s Copyright Act because they consist of creative elements such as footage, editing, the arrangement of video clips, background music, sound effects and captions, and are fixed in a storage medium. As the creator, Hlun Solo automatically became the copyright owner upon creating the works. He held the exclusive rights to reproduce, adapt, communicate the works to the public, license those rights and take legal action against copyright infringement. Under Thai law, copyright in audiovisual works is protected for 50 years from the date of first publication. Since each YouTube upload constitutes the work’s first publication, copyright protection for each video remains in effect for 50 years from the date it was first uploaded. The department said copyright is property that may be transferred, sold or inherited in the same manner as other assets. Statutory heirs If the copyright owner leaves a valid will, ownership passes to the beneficiary named in the will. If there is no will, copyright passes to the statutory heirs under Thailand’s Civil and Commercial Code. The order of succession begins with children, followed by parents, full siblings, grandparents, uncles and aunts. A surviving spouse is also a statutory heir. The DIP advises beneficiaries under a will or statutory heirs to gather the relevant documents and apply to the court for appointment as the estate administrator. Once appointed, the administrator has legal authority to manage the deceased’s assets, including copyright in audiovisual works. The court order appointing the estate administrator can then be used to manage the deceased’s YouTube account, oversee the channel, and administer any revenue generated from the platform.