Copyright and Property

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Randy Barnett has a nice post about copyright laws as a clog on creativity. He also makes a point I made earlier this year:

We won't settle this here. Suffice it to say that there is an enormous difference between tangible and intangible property rights. With tangible property you control your stuff. With intangible property you control other people's stuff. (For more tentative thoughts along this line see here (pdf).)

By the way, the new Beatles re-mix Randy mentions is very interesting. I like it a lot.

Handout 9A Available

We won't get to it for a couple of weeks, but Handout 9A is now available in the Handout racks near the South Side faculty suite.

Oral Argument in Second Amendment Case

Not technically a property case, but the Second Amendment is a check on tyranny designed, in part, to protect property rights from being taken by tyrannical governments. A tyrant will think long and hard before oppressing a well-armed citizenry.

And, of course, handguns are a type of personal property, and thus laws that forbid the ownership of handguns restrict your property right to own a handgun.

From How Appealing:

1. Access online the transcript of today's U.S. Supreme Court oral argument in District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290: The Court has posted it at this link.And C-SPAN has made its rebroadcast of the audio from today's oral argument available for on-demand viewing by clicking here (RealPlayer required).

2. "Supreme Court Majority Appears To Back Gun Rights": Robert Barnes of The Washington Post provides this news update.Michael Doyle of McClatchy Newspapers reports that "Supreme Court justices critical of D.C. gun ban."James Vicini of Reuters reports that "Conservative justices question D.C. handgun ban."And Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News reports that "Gun Rights Draw Support in U.S. Supreme Court Hearing."

Marketable Title Acts

Rather than spend our class time discussing the somewhat complicated facts of H & F Land, lets instead focus on the following hypo:

1/1/1970 Grutz conveys Blackacre in FSA to Lawson (+R)

1/1/1975 Grutz conveys Blackacre in FSA to Duncan (+R)

1/1/2008 Duncan enters into a Land Sales K with Willborn and agrees to tender a marketable title of record in FSA

Who owns Blackacre on 1/1/1975?

Who owns Blackacre on 1/1/2008?

Does Duncan have a marketable title of record to Blackacre for purposes of the land sales contract with Willborn?


1/1/1970 Grutz conveys Blackacre "to A so long as the property is used as a dairy farm." (+R)

1/1/1975 A conveys Blackacre in FSA "to Duncan and his heirs." (+R) Duncan takes possession and farms the land.

1/1/20008 Duncan agrees to convey a marketable title of record in FSA to Willborn.

No Class Friday March 14

Just to make it official, we will be using one of our 7 scheduled off days to cancel class this Friday, March 14. Think of it as an early St. Patrick's Day! Or as a day to remember the Red Sox 2004 World Championship! And remember the old Irish proverb about home ownership: "So long as I live I'll spit in me own parlor."

A Green Paradox

From the PropertyProf blog:

From CNN:
In an environmental dispute seemingly scripted for eco-friendly California, a man
asked prosecutors to file charges against his neighbors because their towering
redwoods blocked sunlight to his backyard solar panels.

But the couple next door insisted they should not have to chop down the trees to accommodate Mark Vargas' energy demands because they planted the redwoods before he installed the solar panels in 2001. . . .

After more than six years of legal wrangling, a judge recently ordered Richard Treanor and his wife, Carolyn Bissett, to cut down two of their eight redwoods, citing an obscure state law that protects a homeowner's right to sunlight.

The couple does not plan to appeal the ruling because they can no longer afford the legal expenses, but they plan to lobby state lawmakers to change or scrap the law.
The Solar Shade Control Act means that homeowners can "suddenly become a criminal the day a tree grows big enough to shade a solar panel," Treanor said.

The case marks the first time a homeowner has been convicted of violating the law, which was enacted three decades ago, when few homeowners had solar systems.

The law requires homeowners to keep their trees or shrubs from shading more than 10 percent of a neighbor's solar panels between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., when the sun is strongest. Existing trees that cast shadows when the panels are installed are exempt, but new growth is subject to the law.

Hmmm. This is a paradox, no? Redwood trees or solar panels? Which one should a Green Guy choose?