Property in United States

Property Definition

The right and interest which a man has in lands and chattels, to the exclusion of others. 6 Bin. (Pa.) 98; 4 Pet. (U. S.) 511; 17 Johns. (N. Y.) 283; 59 N. Y. 192; 31 Cal. 637; 11 East, 290, 518; 14 East, 370. The right to possess, use, enjoy, and dispose of a thing in any manner not forbidden by law (56 N. Y. 268; 31 Cal. 637); the power of disposition being essential (13 N. Y. 396; 70 Mich. 537). The term is frequently applied to that which is the subject of property and in this sense it includes everything corporeal or incorporeal which is the subject of ownership. 26 Conn. 449; 84 N. Y. 565. It includes choses in action. 23 Minn. 239. Within legal and constitutional provisions for the protection of “property,” it has been held to include the right to labor (33 Hun [N. Y.] 374), to practice a profession (90 Pa. St. 477), the right to take an appeal (57 Cal. 464). See “Real Property;” “Chattel Property.”

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The right and interest which a man has in lands and chattels, to the exclusion of others. 6 Bin. (Pa.) 98; 4 Pet. (U. S.) 511; 17 Johns. (N. Y.) 283; 59 N. Y. 192; 31 Cal. 637; 11 East, 290, 518; 14 East, 370. The right to possess, use, enjoy, and dispose of a thing in any manner not forbidden by law (56 N. Y. 268; 31 Cal. 637); the power of disposition being essential (13 N. Y. 396; 70 Mich. 537). The term is frequently applied to that which is the subject of property and in this sense it includes everything corporeal or incorporeal which is the subject of ownership. 26 Conn. 449; 84 N. Y. 565. It includes choses in action. 23 Minn. 239. Within legal and constitutional provisions for the protection of “property,” it has been held to include the right to labor (33 Hun [N. Y.] 374), to practice a profession (90 Pa. St. 477), the right to take an appeal (57 Cal. 464). See “Real Property;” “Chattel Property.”

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This definition of Property Is based on the The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary . This definition needs to be proofread..

Property

United States Constitution

According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, about its article titled 686 PROPERTYThe Constitution explicitly protects the ownership of private property, not only by the Fifth and fourteenth amendments but also through the fourth amendment and seventh amendment as well as by the contract clause and other provisions of Article I, section 10. The Supreme Court has always
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Property in State Statute Topics

Introduction to Property (State statute topic)

The purpose of Property is to provide a broad appreciation of the Property legal topic. Select from the list of U.S. legal topics for information (other than Property).

Concepts

In relation to Rights to Life, Liberty and Property, there are definitions in the American legal dictionary (see the entries) about the following topics:

• Naturalization
• Dual citizenship
• Right of expatriation
• Property rights
• Contract clause
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• Eminent domain
• Regulatory taking
• Due process
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Property Explained

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Probate and Property Database

This is a database related to interests in and transfers of real estate, in the following material: Legal Periodicals. A description of this real estate database is provided below:

Full-text articles from Probate and Property, a publication of the ABA Section of Real Property, Trust, and Estate Law. Selected coverage begins with 1987 (vol. 1).

Further information on United States legal research databases, including real property databases, are provided following the former link.

Finding the law: Property in the U.S. Code

A collection of general and permanent laws relating to property, passed b
y the United States Congress, are organized by subject matter arrangements in the United States Code (U.S.C.; this label examines property topics), to make them easy to use (usually, organized by legal areas into Titles, Chapters and Sections). The platform provides introductory material to the U.S. Code, and cross references to case law. View the U.S. Code’s table of contents here.

Property

In Legislation

Property in the U.S. Code: Title 26, Subtitle D, Chapter 33, Subchapter C, Part II

The current, permanent, in-force federal laws regulating property are compiled in the United States Code under Title 26, Subtitle D, Chapter 33, Subchapter C, Part II. It constitutes “prima facie” evidence of statutes relating to Taxes (including property) of the United States. The reader can further narrow his/her legal research of the general topic (in this case, Tax on Services of the US Code, including property) by chapter and subchapter.

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Property Explained

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Further Reading

• Information about Property in the Gale Encyclopedia of American Law.

Property in 1899 (United States)

The following information about Property is from the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States by the Best American and European Writers.

PROPERTY. I. Right of Property. Political economy inquires into the principles which preside over the formation and distribution of wealth. It takes for granted the existence of property, which is its starting point; it considers it as one of those primary truths which manifest themselves at the origin of society, which are everywhere found impressed with the seal of universal consent, and are accepted as necessities of the civil order and of human nature, without even dreaming of discussing them.

-Read the fathers of economic science: they are almost uniformly silent on this great question. The chief and oracle of the physiocrates, Quesnay, who understood and enlarged upon the social importance of property, does not take the trouble to define it, except in a treatise on natural law. Turgot, the statesman, philosopher and economist, Turgot, who in his work on the distribution of wealth, has thrown brilliant light on the origin, has nothing to say on the principle, the right or the form of property. The master of masters, the author of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, scarcely makes mention of it, without doubt because he saw in it no subject for discussion. J. B. Say decides debate on this subject to be futile, and undeserving the consideration of the science.

The speculative philosopher, he says, in the fourteenth chapter of his book, may busy himself in finding out [384] the real foundations of the right of property; the jurisconsult may lay down the laws which govern the transmission of things possessed; political science may show what are the surest guarantees of this right; but so far as political economy is concerned, it considers property simply as the strongest incentive to the production of wealth, and pays little attention to what establishes and guarantees it.

In other place (vol. II., chap. iv.) he says:

It is not necessary, in order to study the nature and progress of social wealth, to know the origin of property or its legitimateness. Whether the actual possessor of landed property, or the person by whom it was transmitted to him, obtained it by occupation, by violence, or by fraud, the result, as regards the revenue accruing from that property, is the same.

-At the time when J. B. Say wrote, the problem which absorbed and agitated men’s minds was the production of wealth. The European world felt itself poor; it began to understand the productiveness of labor, and craved wealth. Credit extended its operation; commerce spread in spite of war; and manufacturing industry, developing rapidly, presaged already the marvels which have since marked its course. Production in its different forms was the great business of the time. This rising tide carried all with it, population, labor, resources. All had a clear road to travel with their goal before their eyes, nor did they stop to revert to their own situation or that of others. Property seemed then a sort of common stock from which all, with a little effort, might draw in abundance, and which would reproduce itself unceasingly. No one dreamed of calling the right to it in question. The silence of economists is but a translation of the rational indifference of public opinion on the subject.

-At a later period, population having increased in all the states of Europe, the value of land and the rate of wages having generally risen, personal property, thanks to the progress of commerce and industry, equaling or nearly equaling immovable property, and competition, which affected every kind of work and all investments, reducing profits as well as the outlets for human activity, the problem of the distribution of wealth came to the front. The number of poor persons seemed to increase with the number of the rich. It was even believed, for a time, that industrial civilization tended to increase the inequality which naturally exists among men. In this transition period, which still continues, sects were formed to preach to those discontented with the social order, we know not what sort of a future, the first step to which was the abolition or transformation of property.

-Favored political revolutions, those fatal doctrines which at first held subterranean away in some sort until they had hardened the hearts and corrupted the minds of the people, broke loose in the streets of France; the arguments used against society served to load the muskets and point the bayonets of revolt. At first it was necessary to defend social order by armed forces; and now, whether we be economists, philosophers or jurisconsults, we all understand that our duty is to point out in such a way as shall convince the most incredulous, that society, having force on its side, has also reason and right in its favor.

-It was in the light of events that the programme of political economy was extended. A place has now been assigned it in the discussion of the origin and right to property. It must base its intervention here on observation of facts, just as philosophy does, in expounding and commenting on principles. Socialism, by attacking the foundation of social order, compels all the sciences to contribute, each its share, to its defense.

-II. Opinions of Philosophers and Jurisconsults on Propery. Until our time the question of property had been abandoned to philosophers and jurisconsults. The usefulness of their labors is incontestable; they prepared the ground and paved the way for political economy. If they did not always completely observe and demonstrate the nature of things, they had at least had glimpses of it. It was Cicero who showed that the earth became the patrimony of all by labor, and proved that the person who attacked this right of appropriation violated the laws of human society. After him Seneca, although he exaggerated, in accordance with the ideas of his time, the rights of sovereignty, yet recognized that property was an individual right. Ad reges, protestas omn
ium pertinet, ad singulos proprietas.

-Nevertheless the person would wander from his road who sought to find in the writings of philosophers or jurisconsults, either a complete theory of property, or even an exact definition of it. Grotius, who is in the front rank of doctors of natural and international law, has given in a few lines a history of property from which communism might draw its arguments. According to this author, after the creation God conferred on the human race a general right to everything.

This was done, he says, that each might take for his use whatever he wished, and consume what it was possible for him to consume. * * Matters remained thus until, from the increase in the number of men as well as of animals, the land, which was formerly divided by nations, began to be divided among families, and since wells are a supreme necessity in dry countries, and are not equal to supplying a large number, each appropriated what he was able to seize.

-Charles Comte remarks that the publicists of this school, Wolf, Pufendorf and Burlamaqui, confined themselves to paraphrasing the ideas of Grotius. All supposed that, in the origin of societies, men, to satisfy their wants, had only to take what they found ready at hand, that the earth produced without labor, and that appropriated was nothing but occupation or conquest.

More about Property in the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States

-Montesquieu did not understand, any better, the part played by labor in the formation of individual property.

Just as men, he says (book xxvi., of the Spirit of the Laws,) abandoned their natural independence to live under political laws they renounced the natural commodity of goods to live [385] under civil laws. The first laws gave them liberty, the next property.

Montesquieu, the only publicist since Aristotle who undertook to base the laws of social order on observation, was nevertheless unable to prove among any people, however primitive, the existence of that supposed community of goods which, according to him, has its origin in nature. The most savage tribes, in ancient as in modern times, had a very definite idea of mine and thine. Property and the family have everywhere served as the foundations of order, and law has only confirmed, by giving expression to them, relations already established.

-Blackstone does not go farther than Montesquieu, whose ideas agree with those of J. J. Rousseau, on the state of nature. Bentham himself, the writer who, more than any other, departed from the accepted ideas of his times, declares that property does not exist naturally, and that it is a creation of the law.

-There is some consolation for proprietors in Bentham’s assurance, that property will perish only with the law. As human society can not exist without law, and since the end of the law would be the end of society, property may safely count on a long lease of life. Besides, Bentham, following the example of Montesquieu, confounded the idea of property with that of the guarantees which property receives from civil and political laws, guaranteed fifty represented by taxation. The best refutation of Bentham’s theory is to be found in some passages from Charles Comte, which it may be well to reproduce here.

If nations can only exist by means of their property, it is impossible to admit that there is no natural property unless it be admitted that it is unnatural for men to live and to perpetuate themselves.

It is true that there is no image, no painting, no visible feature which can represent property in general; but it can not from this be concluded that property is not material, but metaphysical, and that it belongs entirely to the conception of the mind. There is no visible feature by which a man in general can be represented, because in nature there exist only individuals, land what is true of men is true also of things.

Individuals, families and peoples subsist by means of their property; they could not live on metaphysical relations or conceptions of the mind. There is in property something more real, more substantial, than a basis of expectation. A false, or at least a very incomplete idea is given of it when it is defined as if it were a lottery ticket, which is also a basis of expectation.

According to Montesquieu and Bentham, it is civil laws which give rise to property, and it is clear that both mean by civil laws the decrees of public power which determine the possessions which each one may enjoy and dispose of. It would, perhaps, be more correct to say that it is property which gave birth to civil laws; for it is hard to see what need a tribe of savages, among whom be property of any kind existed, could have of laws or of a government. The guarantee of property is undoubtedly one of the most essential elements of which it is composed; it increases the value of property, and assures its duration. A great mistake would be made, however, were it supposed that this guarantee was all there is of property; the civil law furnishes the guarantee of property, but it is human industry which gives birth to property. Public authority is needed only to protect it and to assure to all the power of enjoying and disposing of it.

Were it true that property exists or is created by decrees and by the protection of public authority, it would follow that the men who in any country were invested with the power of legislation, would also be invested with the power of creating property by their decrees, and could, without committing injury to the right of property, despoil some of it to the advantages of others: they would have no other rules to follow than their own desires or caprices.

-The Scotch school, from Locke to Reid and Dugald Stewart, was the first to give a nearly correct definition of the right of property; as the physiocratic school was the only one, previous to 1789, that understood its importance, and brought out into relief the beneficial influence it exercised on the economy of society. But at the time of the French revolution these teachings had not yet corrected the ideas of all; for Mirabeau said to the constituent assembly that private property is goods acquired by virtue of the laws. The law alone constitutes property, because it is only the political will which can effect the renunciation of all, and give a common title, a guarantee to the use of one alone.

Tronchet, one of the jurists who contributed most to the drawing up of the civil code, shared at that time this opinion, and declared that It is only the establishment of society and conventional laws which are the real source of the right of property.

-There is not much difference between Mirabeau’s statement and that of Robespierre, who wrote, in his declaration of rights, Property is the right that each citizen has to the enjoyment of that portion of goods guaranteed to him by the law.

And Robespierre is not far removed from Babœuf, who desired that the land should be the common property of all, that is, that it should belong to nobody. Mirabeau, who pretends that the legislator confers property, admits, by so doing, that he can take it away; and Robespierre, who expressly reserves the state’s right in property, and reduces the proprietor to the position of a mere usufructuary, by refusing him the power of selling or disposing of it by will or otherwise, is the direct and immediate forerunner of communism.

-I know that the convention gave, in the declaration of rights which serves as a preamble to the constitution of 1793, a very reassuring and very sound definition of the right of property. Article sixteen reads:

The right of property is the right belonging to every citizen, of using and disposing as he likes, of his goods, his revenues, of the fruit of his labor and his industry.

And article nineteen adds a guarantee, which all subsequent French constitutions reproduced:

No one
shall be deprived of the least portion of his property without [386] his consent, except when public necessity, legally proven, evidently demands it, and then only on condition of just compensation previously made.

-But, doubtless, the convention reserved the application of those fine maxims, as it did the abolition of capital punishment, for times of peace. No government ever committed more flagrant outrages on the right of property. Confiscations and maximum laws, to say nothing of the inflation of assignats and bankruptcy, marked its savage away, and if it made France victorious and terrible abroad, it ruined and impoverished her at home. The convention evidently thought, with Saint-Just, that The man who has shown himself the enemy of his country, can not be a proprietor in it.

It treated the nobles and priests as Louis XIV. had treated Protestant refugees after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. It adopted, in the interests of the republican state, the theory of feudal origin, that the sovereign, the king, had direct and supreme dominion over the goods of his subjects.

-M. Troplong called attention to the concordance of the demagogical doctrine of property with the maxims of despotism:

All that exists throughout the length and breadth of our states, said Louis XIV. in his instructions to the Dauphin, whatever be its nature, belongs to us by the same title; you must be fully persuaded that kings are the absolute lords, and have naturally the full and free disposition of all the goods possessed both by church people and by laymen, that they may use it in everything; likewise husbandmen.

Put this absolute sovereignty into the hands of a socialistic republic, and it will assuredly lead to the measures demanded in the following lines by Gracchus Babœuf:

The land of a state should assure a subsistence to all the members of that state. When, in a state, the minority of its people has succeeded in monopolizing its landed and industrial wealth, and by that means holds the majority under its sceptre, and uses the power it has, to cause that majority to languish in want, it should be known that such encroachment could only occur through the bad institutions of the government; therefore what former governments neglected to do, at the time, to prevent that abuse or to stifle it at the beginning, the actual administration should do to re-establish the equilibrium which should never have been lost, and the authority of the laws ought to operate a reform in the direction of the final maxim of the perfected government under the social contract: ‘Let all have enough, and no one too much.’

More information about Property

-At last the era of the civil code dawned on France and on Europe. Then for the first time the public power laid down and sanctioned the true principles respecting property. M. Portalis expressed himself before the legislative assembly in the following terms:

The principle of the right of property is in ourselves; it is in no way the result of human convention or of positive law. It lies in the very constitution of our being, and in our different relations to the objects which surround us. Some philosophers seem astonished that man should become the proprietor of a portion of the earth which is not his creation, which will outlast him, and which obeys only laws that are not of his making. But does not this astonishment cease when all the marvels of man’s handiwork are considered, that is to say, all that human industry can add to the work of nature.

Yes, legislators, it is by our industry that we have conquered and reclaimed the land on which we live; by it we have made the earth more habitable, and better fitted to be our abode. Man’s task, so to speak, was to complete the great work of creation. * * Let us put no faith in systems which pretend to make the land the property of all, that men may have a pretext for respecting the rights of no one.

-The civil code (articles 544, 545), collecting and condensing the principles laid down in previous constitutions, defined property as follows:

The right of using and disposing of things in the most absolute manner, provided that they are not used in a way prohibited by the laws or regulations.

Charles Comte has rightly pointed out that this definition applies to the usufruct’s right as well as to property. The definition of the civil code sins in another way: it does not limit the power which is given to legislators, or to the administration, of making rules regarding the use of property. On that account, property lacks all guarantees; it is not defended against arbitrary power. The law might forbid a landowner to sow seed, to plant vines or trees, to errect any building on his land, to sell, exchange or give his property away. In a word, the definition of the civil code admits of Egyptian monopoly as well as of French liberty. Fortunately, legislative custom and public morals correct the rashness of the legal text.

-The civil code declares property inviolable. Following the examples of the constitutions of 1791, 1793, and 1795, it declared that no one should be compelled to part with his property, unless for the public good, and in consideration of just compensation previously made. But is it absolutely the fact, as M. Troplong thinks it to be, that the state, by these provisions, only reserved to itself the rights attached to political requisition? But did the state by those provisions shelter property from the public power as well as from the usurpation of private persons? This is the weak side of the civil code. Its authors laid down principles, all of whose consequences they had not drawn. While declaring property inviolable, they failed to shield it from sequestration by government, or from confiscation.

-The emperor Napoleon said to the council of state, on Sept. 18, 1809:

Property is inviolable. Napoleon himself, with the numerous armies at his disposal, can not take away a single farm. For to violate the right of property in one man is to violate it in all men.

Admirable words, to which his acts did not correspond.

-III. origin, character and progress of Property. Why is it that the great majority of philosophers and jurisconsults have succeeded so ill in defining property? [387] How does it happen that the origin and nature of an institution which holds so high a place in social order, have been revealed to us with any degree of clearness, only since the end of the last century? How is it that the highest intellects, when brought to bear on this study, have too often evolved only such theories as the humblest of landowners could not reconcile with his every-day practice? It is because the phenomenon which they studied and described has more than once changed character. Property has shared in the general progress of civilization; it has, at the same time, followed a law of development of its own. It has advanced as liberty, as industry and as the arts have done, in the world; it has passed through different and successive stages, each corresponding to a different theory.

-The distinction of mine and thine is as old as the human race. From the time that man became aware of his personality, he sought to extend it to things. He appropriated the land and what it produced, animals and their increase, the fruit of his energy and the works of his fellow-men. Property exists among pastoral peoples as well as among those nations which have reached the highest point of agricultural wealth and of industry; but it exists among them under different conditions. The occupation of land was annual before it became lifelong, and it was lifelong, in the person of the tenant, before it became hereditary and in some sort perpetual. It belonged to the tribe before it belonged to the family, and it was the common domain of the family before it took an individual character. Poets, who were the first historians, attest this gradual transformation.

-The
marked distinction between the ancient and the modern world is, that formerly property was too often acquired by conquest, while now its essential basis is labor. Not only in antiquity and in the middle ages did individuals, as well as peoples, enrich themselves by usurpation, but free men disdained industry, and the earth was tilled by slaves. Armed force, which was the surest title to the possession of land, procured also the instruments of production. How was it possible to sound the nature or take in the full horizon of property at a time when the conqueror arrogated to himself the right, at one time of selling the conquered like beasts of burden, and at another of making serfs of them; when men were treated as though they were goods and chattels; when labor passed first through the ordeal of slavery, and then through that of serfdom, before it became the honor of free men and the wealth of nations?

-This is not all. Property, in undergoing a progressive development similar to that of liberty, has extended and increased, and has, so to speak, invaded space. When civilization begins, what man possesses is very trifling: a few herds, some rude implements, a spot of land which produces corn in the middle of a desert waste; as yet he has scarcely appropriated any natural agents. Agricultural peoples, which succeed the pastoral tribes, soon increase ten-fold and a hundred-fold the property which now, little by little, becomes connected with the surface of the earth. But it remains only for nations skilled in industry and commerce to bring property to its highest development. When the land becomes, in some sort, individualized, and each portion falls into the hands of an owner who makes it productive with his capital and by the sweat of his brow, those who find themselves left out in this partition of the land are not, on that account, excluded from property. Capital has its origin in accumulation. Personal property is grafted on landed property. Treasures accessible to all are formed, of which each can have a share, and which he can increase by his labor. A parcel of land which in Algeria is worth perhaps $2, and in the western states of America about $5, sells readily in western Europe for from $100 to $1,000. In spite of the high price which improved agriculture speedily gives to rural property, there is no exaggeration in saying that to-day the personal property of England and France far exceeds the value embodied in the land.

-It may be added, that, as civilization advances, each citizen witnesses the increase and extension of the common property which he enjoys equally with all other citizens of the state. Roads, canals, railways, schools, and other public establishments are incomparably more numerous and better administered to-day than they were half a century ago. What would it be, if we were to compare the sum of enjoyments and capacities which society put at the disposal of its members in the republics of Greece and Rome and those enjoyed by them in our day? The humblest of our laborers would not like to find himself exposed to the misery or the humiliations which awaited the proletarian of ancient days in the agora or the forum. It is, then, rightly that M. Thiers, calling to mind that property is a universal fact, affirms, at the same time, that it is a growing fact.

-Let us listen to Thiers, portraying the origin and the growth of property in historic times:

Among all peoples, however rude they may be, we found property, at first as a fact, and afterward as an idea, an idea more or less clear according to the degree of civilization attained, but invariably settled. Thus the savage hunter has at least his bow, his arrows and the game which he has killed. The nomad, who is a shepherd, at least owns his tents and his flocks. He has not yet admitted property in land, because he has not yet thought of applying his labor to it. But the Arab who has raised numerous flocks, is satisfied that he is the proprietor of the land, and exchanges its products against the wheat which another Arab, settled on the land, has produced elsewhere. He measures exactly the value of the object which he gives, by that of the object which is given him; he knows that he is the proprietor of the one before the barter, and of the other after it. Immovable property does not yet exist for him. Sometimes only he is seen, during two or three months of the year, to establish himself on land which belongs to no one, to plow it, to sow it with seed, to reap [388] the harvest, and then to wander off to other places. * * The duration of his property is in proportion to his labor. Little by little, however, the nomad becomes settled and turns agriculturist, for it is an instinct in man to wish to have a place of his own, a home. * * He ends by choosing a tract of land, by dividing it into patrimonies, on which each family establishes itself, and works and cultivates it for itself and its posterity. As man can not allow his heart to wander among all the members of the tribe, and as he longs for a wife of his own, children whom he may love, care for and protect, in whom his hopes, his fears, his very life, may be centred, so he has need of his own parcel of land, which he may cultivate, plant, beautify according to his tastes, fence in, and which he hopes to transmit to his descendants, green with trees which have grown not for him, but for them. Then to the personal property of the nomad, succeeds the landed property of an agricultural people; this second property grows, and with it come laws, complicated, it is true, which time makes more just and more provident, but the principle of which it does not change. Property, at first the result of instinct, becomes a social agreement, for I protect your property that you may protect mine. As man advances, he becomes more attached to what he owns; in a word, more a proprietor. In a barbarous state he is scarcely proprietor at all; civilized, he is one intensely. It has been said that the idea of property was weakening in the world. That is an error of fact. Far from growing weaker, it is being regulated, defined and strengthened. It ceases, for instance, to be applied to what is not capable of being possessed, that is, to man, and from that time slavery is at an end. This is an advance in ideas of justice, but not a weakening of the idea of property. * * Among the ancients the land was the property of the republic; in Asia it is that of a despot; in the middle ages it belonged to lords paramount. With the progress of the ideas of liberty, where man’s freedom was accomplished, the liberty of his chattels and possessions was secured; he himself is declared to be the owner of his lands, independently of the republic, the despot, or the lord paramount. From that moment confiscation is abolished. The day the use of his faculties was restored to him, property became more individualized; it became more proper to the individual, more property than it was.

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-There is another observation to be made, and one more directly within the domain of political economy. It is, that the more property increases, is firmly established, respected, the more society prospers.

All travelers, says M. Thiers, have been struck by the state of languor, of misery, and of rapacious usury, of countries in which property is not sufficiently well guaranteed. Go to the east, where despotism claims to be the only property owner, or, which is the same thing, return to the middle ages, and you will see everywhere the same thing: the land neglected, because it is the readiest prey to the avidity of tyranny, and left to the hands of slaves, who are not free to chose their own career; commerce preferred, because it could more readily escape exaction; in commerce, gold, silver and jewels in request, being the valuables most readily hidden; all capital seeking conversion into these values, and when it actually seeks employment concentrating itself in the hands of a proscribed class, who, making a pretense of poverty, lived in houses wretched on the out
side, gorgeous internally, opposing an invincible resistance to the barbarian master who would tear from them the secret of their treasures, and solacing themselves by making him pay more dearly for the money, thus, by usury, revenging themselves for his tyranny.

-Such are the roots of property to be found in history. As far as the right of property is concerned, it may be said that the universality of the fact is sufficient to establish it. Were property something accidental in human society, were the institution established only among an insular people, and were it an exception to the general custom, it might be called upon to produce its title deeds; but it stands to reason that men must have the right to do as they have done at all times, and in every inhabited place. Universal consent is an infallible sign of the necessity for, and consequently of the legality of, an institution.

-But the right can be proved independently of the historic reason.

Man, says M. Thiers, has a first property in his person and his faculties; he has a second, less intimately connected with his being, but not less sacred, in the product of his faculties, which includes all that are called worldly possessions, and which society is in the highest degree interested in guaranteeing to him, for without this guarantee there would be no labor, without labor no civilization, not even necessaries, but, instead, destitution, brigandage and barbarism.

This definition is neither sufficiently absolute nor complete. M. Thiers seems to place the foundation of property in labor alone. Undoubtedly it is its most legitimate source, but it is not the only one, nor, in point of date, is it the first. At the commencement of social life, man appropriated the soil by occupation, before he made it his own by the work of his arms. Everywhere wresting the ground from man or from beast, the taking possession of it preceded it cultivation. The land belonged to a tribe collectively before it was distributed among its different members. This is what the school calls the right of the first occupant, a right which i

Author of this text: L. Faucher.

Property in 1899 (United States)

The following information about Property is from the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States by the Best American and European Writers.

PROPERTY, Literary. Under the healing of Copyright (see vol. i., p.642, Mr. Macleod has given a comprehensive summary of the growth of the conception of literary property, and a specification of the enactments in Great Britain under which its status has been defined and regulated. He has also made reference to the copyright acts of some of the other states of Europe, as they stood twenty years ago. We here propose to supplement Mr. Macleod’s statistics with such later [393] data as can now be obtained, to include the specification (not to be found in Mr. Macleod’s article) of the copyright acts of the United States, and also to present some of the questions that have arisen concerning literary property between nations, and to describe the conventions in force or under consideration for international copyright.

-During the past twenty years, there has been a very considerable increase in the extent of international literary exchanges, and a fuller recognition, at least in Europe, of the propriety and necessity of bringing these under the control of international [394] law. Americans also are beginning to appreciate how largely the intellectual development of their nation must be affected by all that influences the development of the national literature, and to recognize the extent to which such development must depend upon the inducements extended to literary producers, as well as upon the character of the competition with which these producers have to contend.

-Literary property is defined by Drone as the exclusive right of the owner to possess, use and dispose of intellectual productions, and copyright, as the exclusive right of [395] the owner to multiply and to dospose of copies of an intellectual production.

-The English statute (5 8 6 Victoria) defines copyright to mean the sole and exclusive liberty of printing or otherwise multiplying copies of any subject to which the word is herein applied.

-The American statute (U. S. Rev. Stat., sec.4952) speaks of copyright in a book as the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, * * and vending the same.

-The French constitutional convention adopted, in January, 1791, a report prepared by Chopelin, which declares that: La plus sacré, la plus inattaquable, [396] et, si je puis parler ainsi, les plus personelle ds touies les propriétés, est l’ovrage, fruit de las pensés d’un ecrivain. And in the decree rendered by the convention, July 10, 1793, the preamble (written by Lakanal) declares that de toutes les propriétés, lamoins susceptible de contestation, c’est, sans contrédit, celle des productions du génis: et si quelque chose peut étonner, c’est qu’il ait fallu reconnaitre cette propriété assurer son libre exercice par uns loi positive; c’est qu’une aussi grande revolution que la notre ail eté nécessaire pour nous ramener sur ce point, comme sur lout d’autres, aux simples éleménts de la justice la plus commune.

-The act relating to copyright, adopted by the Reichstag of Germany, in April, 1871, declares that Das Recht, ein Schriftwerk auf, mechanischem Wegs zu verviel faltigen, steht dem Urheber desselben ausschliesstich zu.

-Coppinger defines copyright as the sole and exclusive right of multiplying copies of an original work or composition, and says that the right of an author to the productions of his mental exertions, may be classed among the species of property acquired by occupancy; being founded on labor and invention.

-Francis Lieber says(in an address delivered April 6, 1868), The main roots of all property whatsoever are appropriation and production. * * Property * * precedes government. If a man appropriates what belongs to no one (for instance, the trunk of a tree), and if he produces a new thing (for instance, a canoe) out of that tree, this product is verily his own, * * and any one who in turn attempts to appropriate it without the process of exchange, is an intruder, a robber. * * The whole right of property * * rests on appropriation and production: and I appeal to the intuitive conviction of every thinking man to say whether a literary work, such as Baker’s description of his toilsome journeys, or Goethe’s Faust, is not a production in the fullest sense of the world, even more so than a barrel of herrings, which have been appropriated in the North sea, and pickled and barreled by the fishermen; and whether any one has a right to meddle with this property by production, any more than you or I with the barrel of herrings.

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-Drone says:

There can be no property in a production of the mind unless it is expressed in a definite form of words. But the property is not in the words alone; it is in the intellectual creation, which language is merely a means of expressing and communicating.

It is evident that copyright is in its nature akin to patent right, which also represents the legal recognition of the existence of property in an idea or a group of ideas or the form of expression of an idea.

-International patent rights have, however, been recognized and carried into effect more generally than have copyrights. The p
atentee of an improved toothpick would be able to secure today a wider recognition of his right than has been accorded to the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin or of Adam Bede.

-Almost the sole exception to this consensus of civilized opinion on the status of literary property is presented by Henry C. Carey. He took the position that Ideas are the common property of mankind. Facts are everybody’s facts. Words are free to all men. * * Examine Macaulay’s ‘History of England,’ and you will find that the body is composed of what is common property.

Of Prescott, Bancroft and Webster he says:

They did nothing but reproduce ideas that were common property.

Of Scott and Irving, They made no contribution to knowledge.

(Letters on Copyright, Phila., 1854.) Therefore, the author of a work has no right of property in the book he has made. He took the common stock and worked it over: and one man has just as good a right to it as another. If the author is allowed to be the owner of his works, the public are deprived of their rights. Property in books is robbery. But this is simply a partial or specific application of the well-known formula of Proudhon:

Property is robbery, a theory which it is not necessary to discuss in this paper.

-The conception of literary property was known to the ancients. A recompense of some sort to the author was regarded as a natural right, and any one contravening it as little better than a robber. Klostermann says:

The first germs of a recognition of a property in thought are to be found in the agreements which authors entered into with the booksellers for the multiplication and sale of copies of their works,and in the custom to treat as unlawful any infringement upon the bookseller’s right in a work which had been so transferred to him. The booksellers among the Romans succeeded, through the use of slave labor, in producing duplicates of their manuscripts at so low a cost, that the use and productions, centuries later, of the first printing presses, were hardly cheaper.

Martial records, in one of his epigrams, that the edition of his Xenii could be bought from the bookseller Tryphon for four sesterces, the equivalent of about twelve and a half cents. He grumbles at this price as being too high, and claims that the bookseller would have been able to get a profit from a charge of half that amount. This poet appears to have had not less than four publishers in charge of the sale of his works, one of whom was a freedman of the second Lucensia. The latter issued a special pocket edition of the Epigrams.

The poet prepared the advertisements for the booksellers, putting these in the form of epigrams, but not neglecting to specify the form and price of each book, as well as the place where it was offered for sale.56 Horace refers to the brothers Sosius as [397] his publishers, but complains that while his works brought gold to them, for their author they earned only fame in distant lands and with posterity. 57 Terence sold his Eunuch us to the ædiles, and his Hecyra to the player Roscius; while Juvenal reports that Statius would have starved if he had not succeeded in selling to the actor Paris his tragedy of Agave.

Such sales, says Coppinger, were considered as founded, were considered as founded upon natural justice. No man could possibly have a right to make a profit by the sale of the works of another without the author’s consent. It would be converting to his own emolument the fruits of another’s labor.

-It is apparent from these and from similar references, that under the Roman empire authors were in the habit of transferring to booksellers for such consideration as they could obtain, the right to duplicate and to sell their works, and that, under the trade usages, they were protected in so doing. There was no imperial act covering such transfers; and it does not appear that in any division of the Roman law was there provision for the exclusive right in the copy of literary material.

-It is nevertheless the case that the Roman jurists interested themselves in the question of immaterial property, but it was apparently rather as a theoretical speculation than as a study in practical law. Some of the earlier discussions as to the nature of property in ideas appear to have turned upon the question as to whether such property should take precedence over that in the material which happened to be made use of for the expression of the ideas. The disciples of Proculus maintained that the occupation of alien material so as to make of it a new thing, gave a property right to him who had so reworked or reshaped it; while the school of Sabinus insisted that the ownership in the material must carry with it the title to whatever was produced upon the material. Justinian, following the opinion of Gaius, took a middle ground, pointing out that the decision must be influenced by the possibility of restoring the material to its original form, and more particularly by the question as to whether the material, or that which had been produced upon it, was the more essential. This opinion of Gaius appears to have had reference to the ownership of a certain table upon which a picture had been painted, and the decision was in favor of the artist. This decision contains an unmistakable recognition of immaterial property, not, to be sure, in the sense of a right to exclusive reproduction, but in the particular application, that, while material property depends upon the substance,immaterial property, that is to say, property in ideas, depends upon the form.

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-For the centuries following the destruction of the Roman empire, during which literary undertakings were confined almost entirely to the monasteries, the Roman usage, under which authors could dispose of their works to booksellers, and the latter could be secured control of the property purchases, was entirely forgotten. No limitation was placed on the duplication of works of literature. According to Wächter (Das Verlugercht, 1857), it was even the case that by a statute of the university of Paris, issued in 1228, the Parisian booksellers (who were in large part dependent upon the university) were enjoined to extend, as far as practicable, the duplication of works of a certain class. The business of bookseller at that time consisted as much in the renting out for reading and copying of authentic manuscript versions as in the sale of manuscript copies. In the University of Paris, as well as in that of Bologna, a statute specified the least number of copies, usually 120, of a manuscript that a bookseller must keep in stock, and the prices for loaning manuscripts were also fixed by statute. The difficulty and expense attending the reproduction of manuscripts was in every case considerable(much greater than in the early days of the Roman empire) and when, therefore, an author desired to secure a wide circulation for his work, he came to regard the reproduction of copies, not as a reserved right and source of income, but as a service to himself, which he was very ready to facilitate and even to compensate.

-Throughout the middle ages, whatever immaterial property in the realms of science, art or technics, obtained recognition and protection, was held in ownership, not by individuals, but by churches, monasteries or universities. Before the invention of printing, the writers of the middle ages were fortunate if, without a ruinous expenditure, they could succeed in getting their productions before the public. The printing press brought with it the possibility of a compensation for literary labor. Very speedily, however, the unrestricted rivalry of printers brought into existense competing and unauthorized editions, which diminished the prospects of profit, or entailed loss for the authors, editors and printers of the original issue and thus discouraged further similar undertakings.

-As there was no general enactment under which the difficulty could be met, protection for the authors an
d their representatives was sought through special privileges, obtained for separate works as issued. The earliest privilege of the kind was, according to Putter (Beiträge zum deutschen Staats-und Fürstenrecht), that conceded by the republic of Venice, Jan.3, 1491, to the jurist Peter of Ravenna, securing to him and to the publishers selected by him, the exclusive right for the printing and sale of his work Phœnix.

No term of years appears to have been named in this privilege It appears, however, that most of the early Italian enactments in regard to literature were framed, not so much with reference to the protection of authors, as for the purpose of inducing printers (acting also as publishers) to undertake certain literary enterprises which were believed to be of importance to the community.

-The republic of Venice, the dukes of Florence, and Leo X. and other [398] popes, conceded at different times to certain printers the exclusive privilege of printing, for specified terms, rarely apparently exceeding fourteen years, editions of certain classic authors. At this time, when the business of the production and the distribution of books was in its infancy, such undertakings must have been attended with exceptional risk, and have called for no little enlightened enterprise on the part of the printers. It is fair to assume that the princes conceding these privileges were not interested in securing profits for the printers, but had in mind simply the encouragement, for the benefit of the community, of literary ventures on the part of the editors and printers.

-After Italy, it is in France that we find the next formal recognition, on the part of the government, of the rights of property in literature. From the reign of Louis XII. to the beginning of the sixteenth century, it became usage for the publisher (at that time identical with the printer) before undertaking the publication of a work, to obtain from the king an authorization, or letters patent, the term of which appears to have varied according to the nature of the work and the mood of the monarch or of the advising ministers. At the close of nearly all of the volumes issued previous to the revolution, will be found printed: Les Lettres du Roi, addressed, A nos ames at feaux conscillers, les gens lenons nos cours de Parlement * * et autres nos justiciers, et qui font defenses á tous libraires et imprimeurs et autres personnes de quelque qualité et condition qu’elles soient, d’introduire aucun impression étrangére (that is to say, any unauthorized reprint) dans aueun lieu de notre obeissance.

-These letters were in the first place obtained, as in Italy, for the protection of special editions of the classics, but very speedily the native literature increased in importance, and the list of original works came to outnumber that of the reprints of ancient authors. The rights specified in the letters were in the first place nearly always vested in the printers, but it is evident, that, the longer the terms of the royal concessions, the larger the remuneration that could be looked for from the work, and the greater the price that the printer would be in a position to pay to author or writer. It is also to be noted that the terms granted to original French works were usually longer than those for the new editions of the classics or of reprints of devotional works.

-According to Lowndes, the penalties for infringing copyright were, until the revolution, heavier in France than anywhere else in Europe. It was argued that such infringement constituted a worse crime than the stealing of goods from the house of a neighbor, for in the latter case some negligence might possibly be imputed to the owner, while in the former it was stealing what had been confided to the public honor.

-The status of literary property was further recognized and defined by the so-called Ordinances de Moulines of Henry II., in 1556, the declaration o f Charles IX., in 1571, and the letters patent of Henry III., in 1576, but the character of the methods of granting and defending copyrights was not changed in any material respects.

-By the decree of the national assembly of Aug.4, 1789, all the privileges afforded to authors and owners of literary property by the various royal edicts were repealed. In July, 1793, the first general copyright act was passed, under which, protection was conceded to the author for his life, and to his heirs and assigns for ten years thereafter.

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-The imperial act of 1810 extended the term to twenty years after the author’s death, for widow or children, the term remaining at ten years if the heirs were further removed. In 1872 the act now (1883) in force was passed. Under this the term was extended to fifty years from the death of the author. The provisions of the act were also extended to the colonies. Foreigners and Frenchmen enjoy the right equally, and no restriction is made as to the authors being residents at the time the copyright is taken out. It is, further, not necessary that the first publication of the work should be made in France. In case the work be first published abroad, French copyright may subsequently be secured by depositing two copies at the ministry of the interior in Paris, or with the secretary of the prefecture in the departments. The provisions of the statute affecting foreigners may be modified by any convention concluded between France and a foreign country.

-The earliest German enactment in regard to literary property was the privilege accorded in Nuremberg, in 1501, to poet Conrad Celtes, for the works of the poet Hroswista (Helena von Rossow, a nun of the Benedictine cloister of Gardersheim). As this author had been dead for 600 years, the privilege was evidently not issued for her protection, but must rather have been based upon the idea of encouraging Celtes in a praiseworthy (and probably unremunerative) undertaking. Between the years 1510 and 1514 we find record of privileges issued by the emperor Maximilian in favor of the sermons of Geiler of Kaisersberg, and the writings of Schottius, Stabius and others. In 1534 Lutehr’s translation of the Bible was issued in Wittenberg under the protection of the privileges of the elector of Saxony.

-Penalties for piratical reprints were sometimes specified in the special privileges but from 1660 we find certain general acts under which privileged works could obtain protection, and their owners could secure against reprinters uniform penalties. Decrees of this class were issued by the city of Frankfort in 1657, 1660 and 1775, by Nuremberg in 1623, by the electorate of Saxony in 1661, and by the imperial government in 1646. There were also enactments in Hanover in 1778, and in Austria in 1795. All of the above specified acts expressly permitted the reprinting of foreign works, that is, of works issued outside of the domain covered by the enactment. Piratical reprinting between the different German states increased, therefore, with the growth of the literature, and although the injury and injustice caused by it were recognized, [399] and measures for its suppression were promised by the emperors Leopold II. and Francis II. (1790 and 1792), nothing in this direction could be accomplished by the unwieldy imperial machinery.

-In 1794 legislation was inaugurated in the Prussian parliament, which was accepted by the other states of Germany (excepting Wurtemberg and Mecklenburg), under which all German authors and foreign authors whose works were represented by publishers taking part in the book fairs in Frankfort and Leipzig, were protected throughout the states of Germany against unauthorized reprints.

-According to Klostermann these enactments were only in small part effective, and it was not until forty years later, that, under the later acts of the new German confederacy, German authors were able to secure throughout Germany a satisfactory protection. It is nevertheless, the case that to those who frame
d the Berlin enactment of 1794 must be given the credit of the first steps toward the practical recognition of international copyright.

-The copyright statute now in force in Germany, including Elsass and Lothringen, dates from 1871. The term is for the life of the author and for thirty years thereafter. The copyright register for the empire is kept at Leipzig, The protection of the law is afforded to the works of citizens, whether published inside or outside of the empire, and also to works of aliens, if these are published by a firm doing business within the empire.

-In Italy literary copyright rests upon the statute of 1865. The term is for the life of the author and for forty years after his death, or for eighty years from the publication of the work. After the expiration of the first forty years, however, or after the death of the author, in case this does not take place until more than forty years have elapsed since the publication, the work is open to publication by any one who will pay to the author of the copyright a royalty of 5 per cent, of the published price. It is necessary to deposit two copies of the work, together with a declaration in duplicate, at the prefecture of the province. No distinction is made between citizens and aliens, and the provisions of the law are applicable to the authors of works first published in any foreign country, between which and Italy there is no copyright treaty.

-In Austria the term of literary copyright is for thirty years after the author’s death, and the other provisions of the act in force are similar to those of the German statute.

-In Holland and Belgium, copyright, formerly perpetual, is now limited to the life of the author and twenty years thereafter.

-In Denmark, copyright, formerly perpetual, is now limited to thirty years from the date of publication.

-In Sweden, copyright was also, until recently, perpetual. By the act of 1877, however, it now endures for the life of the author and for fifty years thereafter. The provisions of the law are made applicable to the works of foreign authors only on conditions of reciprocity.

-In spain, copyright rests on the act of 1878, and endures during the life of the author and for eighty years thereafter. If the right be assigned by the author, and the author leave no heirs, it belongs to the assignees for eighty years from the author’s death. In the case, however, of heirs being left by the author, the assignment holds good for but twenty-five years, after which the ownership reverts to the heirs for the remaining fifty-five years of the term. Owners of foreign works will retain their rights in Spain, provided they adhere to the law of their own country. The copyright registry is kept at the ministry of the interior, and to perfect the registry a deposit of three copies of the work is required. The Spanish government is authorized to conclude copyright treaties with foreign countries on the condition of complete reciprocity between the contracting parties. Under such an arrangement any author or his representative who has legally secured copyright in the one country would be, without further formalities, entitled to enjoy it in the other.

-In Russia, copyright endures for the life of the author and for fifty years thereafter.

-In Greece the term is fifteen years from publication.

-In Japan the law of copyright dates from 1874. Manuscript must be examined by the department of the interior, and if found free from disloyal opinions or any matter calculated to injure public morals, a certificate of protection is promptly issued. Three copies of the work must be deposited in the department, and the fees amount to the value of six more copies.

-In China, notwithstanding the large body of national literature, no laws have been enacted for the protection of literary property.

-In Great Britain the act of 1842, now (1883) in force, provides as follows: Copyright in a book endures for forty-two years from the date of publication, or for the author’s life, and for seven years after, whichever of these two terms may be the longer. The first publication of the work must be in Great Britain. The copy can be taken out by any author or owner who is a British citizen, or by an alien who may at the time of the first publication be within the British dominions (in any portion of the British empire). The work must be registered in the records of the stationers’ company, and five copies must be delivered to certain institutions specified. A bill is now, however, before parliament, framed mainly upon the recommendations of the copyright commission of 1878, which provides that the term of copyright for books shall be fifty years; that in the case of British subjects copyright extends to all the British dominions; that aliens, wherever resident, shall be entitled to British copyright on registering their work in that part of the British dominions where it was first published.

-The history of the status of literary property in England prior to 1863, is given in detail in the article of Mr. Macleod (vol. i., p. 642). It is in England that the nature and basis of copyright have received the most thorough consideration, and the English opinions (although representing very wide differences among themselves) have been the most important contributions to the discussion of the subject. It is sufficient to note here that the first record of the [400] recognition of property in literature appears in 1558 (that is, half a century later than in France or Germany) when the earliest entry of titles was made on the register of the company of stationers in London. As early as 1534, however, Henry VIII, granted to the university of Cambridge the exclusive right of printing certain books in which the crown claimed a prerogative. Afterward, patents cum privilegio were granted to individuals. Prior to 1710 there was no legislation creating literary property or confining ownership, nor any abridging its perpetuity or restricting its enjoyment. It was understood, therefore, to owe its existence to common law, and this conclusion, arrived at by the weightiest authorities, remained practically unquestioned until 1774. For the provisions of the act of 1710(8 Anne), the details of the cases of Miller vs. Taylor (1769), and Donaldson vs. Becket (1774), the discussions concerning these cases, with the opinions of Lord Mansfield, Lord Camdon and Justice Yates, and also for the debate attending the framing of the act of 1842, with the argumens of Talfourd, Lord Campbell, Justice Coleridge, Lord Macanlay and Thomas Hood, the reader is referred to Mr. Macleod’s paper.

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-In the United states the first act in regard to copyright was passed in Connecticut in January, 1783. This was followed by the Massachusetts act of March, 1783, that of Virginia in 1785, and New York and New Jersey in 1786. These acts were due more particularly to the efforts of Noah Webster, and their first service was the protection of his famous Speller.

Webster journeyed from state capital to state capital to urge upon governors and legislatures the immediate necessity of copyright laws, and under his persistency measures had also been promised and in part framed in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina. The necessity for state laws on the subject was, however, obviated by the United States statute of 1790. In creating a public and legislative opinion which made such a law possible, Webster’s writings and personal influence were all important.

-Previous to the adoption of the federal constitution, in 1787, a general copyright law was not within the province of the central government, and in order to encourage the states in the framing of copyright legislation, a resolution, proposed by Madison, was adopted in congress, in May, 1783, recommending to the states the adoption of laws securing copyright for a term of not less than fourteen years. The state acts passed prior to this resolution had con
ceded a term of twenty-one years. The act of 1790 provided for the shorter time suggested by Madison. The act of 1831 extended the fourteen years to twenty-eight, with privilege to the author, his widow or children, of renewal for fourteen years more. The act of 1834 provided that all deeds for the transfer or assignment of copyright should be recorded in the office in which the original entry had been made. In 1846 the act establishing the Smithsonian Institution required that one copy of the work copyrighted should be delivered to that institution, and one copy to the library of congress. This provision was repealed in 1859, by a statute which transferred to the department of the interior the custody of the publications and records. In 1865 the copies were again ordered to be delivered to the library of congress. In 1861 an act was passed, providing that cases of copyright could, without regard to the amount involved, be appealed to the supreme court.

-The act now in force in the United States, is that of July, 1870, (See Rev. Stat., secs. 4948-4971). This provides that the business of copyrights shall be under charge of the librarian of congress; that copyrights may be secured by any citizen of the United States or resident therein; that the term of copyright shall be twenty-eight years, with the privilege of renewal for the further term of fourteen years, by the author if he be still living and continues to be a citizen or a resident, or by his widow or children if he be dead; that two copies of the work shall be deposited in the library of congress; that the work must first be published in the United States, and that the original jurisdiction of all suits under the copyright laws shall rest with the United States circuit courts.

-Under the present interpretation of the courts in both the United States and Europe, copyright in published works exists only by virtue of the statutes defining (or establishing) it, while in works that have not been published, such as compositions prepared exclusively for dramatic representation, the copyright obtains through the common law. Copyright by statute is of necessity limited to the term of years specified in the enactment, while copyright at common law has been held to be perpetual. The leading English decisions have before been referred to. The United States decision, which still serves as a precedent on the point of the statutory limitation of copyright, is that of the United States supreme court in 1834, in the case of Wheaton vs. Peters. This decision involved the purport of the United States law of 1790, and the determination of the same question that had been decided by the house of lords in 1774, viz., whether copyright in a published work existed by the common law,

Author of this text: Geo. Haven Putnam.

Property in 1899 (United States)

The following information about Property is from the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States by the Best American and European Writers.

PROPERTY, Landed. (see RENT.)

Author of this text:

Property meaning

Property is the absolute right to use, abuse and enjoy profits from an object whether corporeal (material) or incorporeal (abstract). These rights are enjoyed against all persons other than the sovereign.

Labberton v. General Cas. Co. of America, 53 Wash.2d 180, 332 P.2d 250.

See: also posession, property damage

In the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976

Attachment and Execution: Location of the Property

According to research about Property from the Federal Judicial Center:See Foreign Immunities Attachment and Execution in this legal Encyclopedia.See Diplomatic Property, Protection of Foreign Property and Enforcement Jurisdiction.

Concepts

In relation to Rights to Life, Liberty and Property, there are definitions in the American legal dictionary (see the entries) about the following topics:

• Naturalization
• Dual citizenship
• Right of expatriation
• Property rights
• Contract clause
• Police powers
• Eminent domain
• Regulatory taking
• Due process
• Procedural due process
• Substantive due process
• Search warrant
• Racial profiling
• Exclusionary rule
• Immunity
• Grand jury
• Indictment
• Plea bargain
• Petit jury
• Double jeopardy
• Community policing

Property Explained

References

See Also

• Property

Resources

See Also

• Rights to Life
• Liberty
• Property

Property Explained

References

See Also

• Property

Resources

See Also

Popular Topics related with Property

• Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act Commercial Activity Exception
• Foreign Sovereign Immunities Doctrine
• Foreign Sovereign Immunity Meaning
• Immunities Government
• Immunity from Prosecution
• Immunity Ratione Material

Single Purpose Property in the context of Real Estate

Resurces

See Also

• Special Purpose Property

Wasting Property in the context of Real Estate

Resurces

See Also

• Wasting Assets