Estate planning

I'm writing a last will and testament.
What may I say regarding my Hauptwerk organ and sample sets?
May I leave it all to an individual or to an institution?
Or must it be cremated with me and the ashes buried at sea?

[B. Milan]

Yes, we can transfer licenses to new users in these situations.

I'm writing a last will and testament.

¡REMEMBER ME¡¡

(kidding...hope you can get more organs before your last will be effective)
Luis

Thanks, Brett!
Do we send you information about our intended beneficiary, or just have the Executor of the will, or the beneficiary contact you when the time comes?

[B. Milan]

Please just have them contact us when they are ready to transfer the license.

I would like to assure that someone who has the capacity to appreciate Hauptwerk and my collection of sample sets will continue to enjoy them; but I'm not sure who that would be.

Would it be possible to set up a registry of interested worthy organ students and organists who would like to inherit Hauptwerk organs and sample sets when current owners are no longer able to use them, and would like to donate them; or pass away and designate their Hauptwerk organs in their wills or trusts as a gift to a deserving recipient from the registry?

Does such a registry already exist for donating used organs to worthy recipients? If not, would this be a worthwhile AGO service for Hauptwerk organ systems?

The same problem exists for large libraries of organ music.

John

Our local AGO chapter serves as a conduit for recycling organ music. Estates give the sheet music to the AGO chapter, which then sells it at low prices to members at events.

A semi-serious observation: Maybe we should let the sample set producers make some money and keep producing sample sets?

It has been my experience over the years that anything related to computers has a very limited lifespan. I would not expect any computer company to support either software or hardware that is even five years old. I have been involved with Hauptwerk for about 10 years. The samplesets that I had at the beginning are no longer of any real nterest to me, as the new surround sets are a lot more enjoyably realistic, at least to me. The money I spent in the early years was very well spent, and like anything computer related, will not be able to be recouped. Things in the real world do wear out, get used up, and are replaced by newer things all the time. I would suggest that the Hauptwerk software we have today will be far surpassed by what will come in the future. There are lots of ways for young people today to get involved with organs, if they wish to do so. Setting up a foundation for used (old) computer organ software I think would be of little interest to the youth of today. It would be a little like having old computer games like Pong or Atari available to deserving individuals. If anyone would really like to help newcomers to organ music, I would suggest setting up a fund to provide the very latest and best to those "deserving" people. Thinking of passing down old copies of Hauptwerk software to future generations is not doing those future generations any great service. I suspect that even midi will by surpassed some day. I have a lot of money "invested" in Hauptwerk, but do not have any expectations of recouping any of it in any other way than my continued enjoyment in using it.
James

You have to be careful with Hauptwerk. When I first installed it and started playing, I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven!