LT W1 – INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITIONS TO
PROPERTY
TOPICS:
1. What is property (intro)
2. Locke: labour and possessive individualism
3. Cultural property: what kind of property is cultural property? Who
owns the Parthenon Marbles?
4. Land: how is land owned? Feudalism and Title
5. Native Title: Mabo v Queensland No 2 [1992]
6. Commons and Anticommons
7. Body Ownership: do you own (your) body?
8. Data I: Bitcoin
9. Data II: Securities
10. TBA
11. The end/future of property: Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access
12. Revision (conclusion)
WHAT IS PROPERTY
‘Property law is best understood as the complex of jural [legal]
relationships between persons with respect to things. It is the sum of
rights and duties, privileges and no-rights, powers and liabilities,
disabilities and immunities that exist with respect to things. This holds
true for both Western and non-Western legal systems.’ - (Britannica)
E.g. you have a legal relationship with the phone provider but not with the
phone company or with other people. This is the difference between
contractual and property relationship. People must respect other’s
properties, but in contract law if you declare to someone that ‘this is my
phone’ and they agree then a legal relationship is formed in contract law.
PROPERTY USUALLY MEANS…
REAL property (LAND, broken down into estates) (FREEHOLD and
LEASEHOLD)
LPA 1925 s.1) - or property in immovable things.
PERSONAL property (everything else; or property in movable things,
e.g. chattels,
intangibles (bank account; IP), also called personalty as opposed to
realty.
E.g. if you lose a fiver from the bank you lose rights to the fiver. The
bank
, loans you the money and if you lose that value in the toTal sum of
what the bank
pays you then it is you that lost it and you lose rights over it).
PUBLIC property (land, buildings, equipment, etc. owned by the govt
- Cambridge
Dictionary).
‘To claim 'property' in a resource is, in effect, to assert a
strategically
important degree of control over that resource; and to conflate or
confuse
this relationship of control with the actual thing controlled may often
prove
to be an analytical error of some substance. For 'property' is,
instead,
the word used to describe particular concentrations of power over
things
and resources. The term 'property' is simply an abbreviated
reference to a
quantum of socially permissible power exercised in respect
of a socially valued
resource.’ (Gray and Gray, on Moodle Week 1)
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT
What constitutes 'resources' for property claims?
Can the definition of 'property' change over time?
Is everything potentially property?
How do you KNOW when something is capable of being property?
Examples of property and not property.
How do you identify an ‘owner’?
Does anyone/everyone get to be a (possible) owner?
Can you have ‘property’ that is not capable of being owned?
Are their degrees of ownership? (is saying ‘my family’ the same as
saying
‘my car’ or ‘my education’?)
If property comes into being, in relationship with owners and
ownership, at
certain times for certain resources, then how does that happen?
who has the
power to do that?
Where or when do you think that the idea of property becomes a
troubling idea to
enforce? In human rights law? In family law? In art law?
JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)
THE THEORY OF POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALISM
PROPERTY
TOPICS:
1. What is property (intro)
2. Locke: labour and possessive individualism
3. Cultural property: what kind of property is cultural property? Who
owns the Parthenon Marbles?
4. Land: how is land owned? Feudalism and Title
5. Native Title: Mabo v Queensland No 2 [1992]
6. Commons and Anticommons
7. Body Ownership: do you own (your) body?
8. Data I: Bitcoin
9. Data II: Securities
10. TBA
11. The end/future of property: Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access
12. Revision (conclusion)
WHAT IS PROPERTY
‘Property law is best understood as the complex of jural [legal]
relationships between persons with respect to things. It is the sum of
rights and duties, privileges and no-rights, powers and liabilities,
disabilities and immunities that exist with respect to things. This holds
true for both Western and non-Western legal systems.’ - (Britannica)
E.g. you have a legal relationship with the phone provider but not with the
phone company or with other people. This is the difference between
contractual and property relationship. People must respect other’s
properties, but in contract law if you declare to someone that ‘this is my
phone’ and they agree then a legal relationship is formed in contract law.
PROPERTY USUALLY MEANS…
REAL property (LAND, broken down into estates) (FREEHOLD and
LEASEHOLD)
LPA 1925 s.1) - or property in immovable things.
PERSONAL property (everything else; or property in movable things,
e.g. chattels,
intangibles (bank account; IP), also called personalty as opposed to
realty.
E.g. if you lose a fiver from the bank you lose rights to the fiver. The
bank
, loans you the money and if you lose that value in the toTal sum of
what the bank
pays you then it is you that lost it and you lose rights over it).
PUBLIC property (land, buildings, equipment, etc. owned by the govt
- Cambridge
Dictionary).
‘To claim 'property' in a resource is, in effect, to assert a
strategically
important degree of control over that resource; and to conflate or
confuse
this relationship of control with the actual thing controlled may often
prove
to be an analytical error of some substance. For 'property' is,
instead,
the word used to describe particular concentrations of power over
things
and resources. The term 'property' is simply an abbreviated
reference to a
quantum of socially permissible power exercised in respect
of a socially valued
resource.’ (Gray and Gray, on Moodle Week 1)
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT
What constitutes 'resources' for property claims?
Can the definition of 'property' change over time?
Is everything potentially property?
How do you KNOW when something is capable of being property?
Examples of property and not property.
How do you identify an ‘owner’?
Does anyone/everyone get to be a (possible) owner?
Can you have ‘property’ that is not capable of being owned?
Are their degrees of ownership? (is saying ‘my family’ the same as
saying
‘my car’ or ‘my education’?)
If property comes into being, in relationship with owners and
ownership, at
certain times for certain resources, then how does that happen?
who has the
power to do that?
Where or when do you think that the idea of property becomes a
troubling idea to
enforce? In human rights law? In family law? In art law?
JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)
THE THEORY OF POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALISM
