I recommend you think about this: where does property come from? Is something ours because the government says it's ours or does it have a deeper meaning that transcends government?
I'd argue that property exists because things (apples, cars, gym equipment) have limitations on their use. If I eat an apple, you can't. If you grow a crop on this property, you can't. While he uses this gym equipment, they can't.
Even in historical contexts where there has been no effective government (silk road, dark ages iceland), ideas of property have evolved that are strikingly consistent, because it extends from realities of the world.
As states developed, they came to give stronger definition to property law. But then people who were well-connected to government decided that it would be a good idea to extend these convenient powers to things which were not property, sometimes by falsely labeling them as property.
So it comes down to who has control over the language.
Is property a distinct idea, or is it just a bundle of whatever rights the government of the day declares it to be.
And if you choose the latter, if the government says that black is white, is it so?
You raise a good point here about what property actually is.
I'd like to extend on this concept and add ownership into equation.
In the example with an apple. I own it, therefore only I can eat it. It is my property. Now what happens if I give the apple to somebody else? It's their property now, so you would naturally assume they own it? And therefore they can eat it.
Alas, it's not the case with music/etc. I bought a CD with music, but it appears that I don't own it. I cannot listen to it in public (Happy Birthday to You), nor I can give it to someone else (lend DVD to a friend for a pint).
So this doesn't work out very well, the CD is my property, but I don't own it? To me owning means having right to do whatever I please with it. Imagine if blending an iPhone would become a criminal offence...
Yes. I think the key point here is that property is treated in law as a right, but copyright functions as an anti-right.
I'll try to explain what I mean by anti-right though I'm unpracticed here.
(1) Society is oriented around a presumption of live-and-let-live. Most laws give rights that state the boundary of live-and-let live, and these are positive rights.
(2) In the case of copyright, only the creator has the ability to live-and-let-live in the context of the protected thing: everyone else is restricted from it. Hence, this is a negative right, or "anti-right".
When rights and anti-rights clash, you get nasty situations develop where they can't all be true at the same time.
i.e. in order to make IP anti-rights work, the laws need to inhibit 'real' property rights.
i.e. I am not allowed to do things with magnetic signals in the privacy of my own home because that impedes an anti-right that the government has granted to someone else.
If you build complex software with a permissions model that contains both positive and negative permissions (i.e. where a user has a permission that is "can't see" something rather than being a positive right), you'll find similar nasty situations develop.
I'd argue that property exists because things (apples, cars, gym equipment) have limitations on their use. If I eat an apple, you can't. If you grow a crop on this property, you can't. While he uses this gym equipment, they can't.
Even in historical contexts where there has been no effective government (silk road, dark ages iceland), ideas of property have evolved that are strikingly consistent, because it extends from realities of the world.
As states developed, they came to give stronger definition to property law. But then people who were well-connected to government decided that it would be a good idea to extend these convenient powers to things which were not property, sometimes by falsely labeling them as property.
So it comes down to who has control over the language.
Is property a distinct idea, or is it just a bundle of whatever rights the government of the day declares it to be.
And if you choose the latter, if the government says that black is white, is it so?