Property Outlaws

Property Outlaws puts forth the intriguingly counterintuitive proposition that, in the case of both tangible and intellectual property law, disobedience can often lead to an improvement in legal regulation. The authors argue that in property law there is a tension between the competing demands of stability and dynamism, but its tendency is to become static and fall out of step with the needs of society. The authors employ wide-ranging examples of the behaviors of “property outlaws”—the trespasser, squatter, pirate, or file-sharer—to show how specific behaviors have induced legal innovation. They also delineate the similarities between the actions of property outlaws in the spheres of tangible and intellectual property. An important conclusion of the book is that a dynamic between the activities of “property outlaws” and legal innovation should be cultivated in order to maintain this avenue of legal reform.

Property Outlaws puts forth the intriguingly counterintuitive proposition that, in the case of both tangible and intellectual property law, disobedience can often lead to an improvement in legal regulation. The authors argue that in property law there is a tension between the competing demands of stability and dynamism, but its tendency is to become static and fall out of step with the needs of society. The authors employ wide-ranging examples of the behaviors of ?property outlaws”?the trespasser, squatter, pirate, or file-sharer?to show how specific behaviors have induced legal innovation. They also delineate the similarities between the actions of property outlaws in the spheres of tangible and intellectual property. An important conclusion of the book is that a dynamic between the activities of ?property outlaws” and legal innovation should be cultivated in order to maintain this avenue of legal reform.

The purchase of this ebook edition does not entitle you to receive access to the Connected eBook on CasebookConnect. You will need to purchase a new print book to get access to the full experience including: lifetime access to the online ebook with highlight, annotation, and search capabilities, plus an outline tool and other helpful resources. Perspectives on Property Law, edited by Robert C. Ellickson, Carol M. Rose, and Henry E. Smith is an interdisciplinary introduction to property law and institutions through edited and annotated readings from classic and contemporary sources. Entering its Fifth Edition, Perspectives on Property Law continues its track record of success. The authors supplement a wide selection of fascinating and essential readings on Property Law with their own commentary. This reader continues an approach tracing back to the landmark first edition—Bruce Ackerman's Economic Foundations of Property Law, published in 1975. Like all previous editions, this edition contains many selections, both classic and more recent, in law and economics. Included selections are also taken from sociology, psychology, history, philosophy, gender studies, game theory, and law and literature. New to the 5th Edition: Richard Brooks’s article on the dangers of racial discrimination from non-enforceable Restrictive Covenants. Yun-chien Chang’s chapter from a global comparative study questioning the basis for Adverse Possession. Thomas W. Merrill’s article on the Economics of Leasing. Henry E. Smith’s article on equity as meta-law and F.H. Lawson’s article on the creative use of legal concepts. Professors and students will benefit from: An assemblage of leading writings on the fundamental issues of Property Law Each selection is accompanied by notes, questions, and commentary designed to deepen student understanding A well-known and respected author team

Having its origins in the process of transformation and land reform that began to take shape in South Africa at the end of the last century, this strikingly original analysis of property starts from deep inside the property regime and not from a distant or abstract perspective on property rules and practices. Focusing on issues of stability and change in a transformative setting and on the role of tradition and legal culture in that context, the book argues that a property regime, including the system of property holdings and the rules and practices that entrench and protect them, tends to insulate itself against change through the security- and stability-seeking tendency of tradition and legal culture, including the deep assumptions about security and stability embedded in the rights paradigm, rhetoric and logic that dominate current legal culture. The rights paradigm tends to stabilise the current distribution of property holdings by securing extant property holdings on the assumption that they are lawfully acquired, socially important and politically and morally legitimate. This function of the rights paradigm tends to resist or minimise change, including change brought about by morally, politically and legally legitimate and authorised reform or transformation efforts. The author's goal is to gauge the lasting power of the rights paradigm by investigating its effects in the margins of property law and of society, by establishing the actual efficacy and power of reformist or transformative anti-eviction policies and legislation aimed at the protection of marginalised and weak land users and occupiers in areas such as landlord-tenant law, eviction of unlawful occupiers of land and other restrictions on the landowner's power to enforce a stronger right to exclusive possession. Ultimately the book's aim is to explore the possibility of opening up theoretical space where justice-inspired changes to (or transformation of) the extant property regime can be imagined and discussed more or less fruitfully from an unusual perspective, a perspective from the margins which is valuable for any theoretical consideration or discussion of property.

Property and Community fills a major gap in the legal literature on property and its relationship to community. The essays included differ from past discussions, including those provided by law-and-economics, by providing richer accounts of community. By and large, prior discussions by property theorists treat communities as agglomerations of individuals and eschew substantive accounts of justice, favoring what Charles Taylor has called "procedural" conceptions. These perspectives on ownership obscure the possibility that the "community" might have a moral status that differs from neighboring owners or from non-owning individuals. This book examines a variety of social practices that implicate community in its relationship to property. These practices range from more obvious property-based communities like Israeli kibbutzim to surprising examples such as queues. Aspects of law and community in relationship to legal and social institutions both inside and outside of the United States are discussed. Alexander and Peñalver seek to mediate the distance between abstract theory and mundane features of daily life to provide a rich, textured treatment of the relationship between law and community. Instead of defining community in abstractly theoretical terms, they approach the subject through the lens of concrete institutions and social practices. In doing so, they not only enrich our empirical understanding of the relationship between property and community but also provide important insights into the concept of community itself.

This book provides a re-assessment of property law for a future of environmental disruption. This book will appeal to a broad readership with interests in legal theory, property law, adaptive governance, international development, refugee studies, postcolonial studies and natural disasters.

An introduction to the leading modern theories of property and applies those theories to concrete contexts in which property issues have been especially controversial.

Qiao demonstrates how an impersonal and unbounded market can operate without legal protection or enforcement of property and contract rights.