Intellectual property rights in research works after the author's death

A question about research papers a deceased man left on an online account that he had shown to one of his children, and whether they form part of the inheritance, in which Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya answered that an author's economic rights last for his lifetime and fifty years after his death, that the rights to benefit from the papers are part of the estate and pass to all the heirs, and that the child who was shown the account has no exclusive claim to them without a cause transferring ownership. ¹

The questioner said his father had an account on a website containing a collection of his research papers, that he had shown him the account and its password and then died, and asked whether these papers form part of the inheritance or are his own property. ¹

Dar al-Ifta began by explaining that preserving property is among the universal aims of sharia, quoting al-Ghazali in al-Mustasfa (p. 174) that the Lawgiver's purpose for creation is to preserve their religion, lives, minds, progeny and property; it said that intellectual, literary and artistic property and authors' rights, known in modern usage as intangible rights, are rights established for their holders in sharia and custom as a form of property, since a right is property, ownership and a settled existent, quoting Ibn Sida in al-Muhkam (10/440) that property is whatever one owns of all things and Murtada al-Zabidi in Taj al-Arus (25/167). ¹ It ruled that the word property, used without qualification, covers tangible things, uses and rights, because uses and rights are valuable property, quoting al-Mazari in Sharh al-Talqin (3/176) that the uses of things may be contracted for against consideration; Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni in Nihayat al-Matlab (8/205) that uses are like tangible things in being property; al-Rafi'i in al-Sharh al-Kabir (10/224) that uses are property like tangible things; Ibn Qudama in al-Mughni (5/322) that uses are on the footing of tangible things, since they may be transferred during life and after death and are guaranteed by possession and destruction; and al-Buhuti in Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat (2/320) that a use is valuable property. ¹

Dar al-Ifta then said that intellectual production and authorship are things that are used, that give rise to an exclusive claim, that are valued and traded by custom and made the subject of exchange between people since the appearance of printing and publishing, and that carry a right of legal action in legal custom with nothing in sharia to oppose it, so such rights have the status of property, owned exclusively by their holders; it referred to Egypt's Intellectual Property Protection Law 82 of 2002, whose article 140 protects authors' rights over their literary and artistic works, including books and articles, and whose article 160 provides that an author's economic rights are protected for his lifetime and fifty years from the date of his death. ¹ It explained that a man's permitting one of his children to view his research or books uploaded to websites, or allowing him to publish or arrange them or to manage the account, does not make that child the owner of the research to the exclusion of the other heirs, because ownership arises only through one of the causes of ownership, such as gift, bequest, inheritance or sale; so long as none of these occurred, the most that can be said is that the author entrusted the child with it during his lifetime. It cited the lists of the causes of ownership given by al-Zayla'i in Tabyin al-Haqa'iq (6/21) with al-Shalabi's gloss, by al-Mawardi in al-Hawi al-Kabir (17/36), and by Ibn al-Rif'a in Kifayat al-Nabih (11/376), who counts eight causes by which property is acquired. ¹

It ruled that since intellectual property rights and scholarly research are rights established for their holders in sharia, custom and law, and since ownership of things comes only by a direct transfer from their owner, a person who dies leaving them without having transferred their ownership or the rights of use to another leaves them as part of his estate, to be treated as an estate, with the rights of use divided among the heirs each according to his lawful share, because they remain property, and the estate is what the deceased leaves of property, as it quoted from Ibn Abidin in Radd al-Muhtar (6/759), al-Hattab in Mawahib al-Jalil (6/406), al-Damiri in al-Najm al-Wahhaj (6/111) and al-Buhuti in Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat (2/499). ¹ It concluded that an author's economic rights last for his lifetime and fifty years after his death, that the rights to benefit from the research the questioner's father left are part of his property, entering his estate and passing to his heirs, and that no one of them has an exclusive claim without a valid cause transferring ownership before death, such as sale, gift or bequest. ¹

Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya published this fatwa on dar-alifta.org as no. 8955, dated 16 April 2026, in the category of inheritance, among the fatwas of the Grand Mufti Nazir Muhammad Ayyad. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.