The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) was intended to update copyright law for the digital age. Content owners love it and consumers largely hate it. As a general rule, the DMCA prohibits circumvention of copyright protection systems. In other words, if your content or device contains technology or software designed to prohibit access to copyrighted works, you cannot use any method of getting around it. Common forms of such protection include DVD encryption and Digital Rights Management (“DRM”) on downloaded music. Lest you think such circumvention always requires the skills of a computer hacker, know that in one notorious situation, Sony utilized a copy protection on its music CDs that could be circumvented by drawing around the outside of the CD with a felt tip marker.

     Some property passes without court proceedings or application of laws of succession. For example, property you own in joint tenancy will pass automatically to the surviving joint owner upon your death. Financial accounts that are payable on death to a survivor will pass to that person automatically.

     Last week, we defined “probate” as a judicial proceeding to administer a decedent’s last will and testament. We also distinguished an “estate administration” proceeding from a probate proceeding by explaining that an administration is the process used when the decedent died without a will. So, the question now is how does the process work if the decedent died without a will?