On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 9:07 PM, Robert Sanderson <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Can I then transfer ownership of an E30 Right? No, as you transfer > ownership of Physical Things (E18), not of Propositional (E89), Conceptual > (E28), Man-Made (E71), Things (E70). > Such a limitation would not really match the way the law thinks of "Rights". "Rights" can be transferred separately from ownership of a physical thing. For example, if you rent an apartment, the lease is a transfer of the "right" to occupy the premises from the landlord to you, without giving you ownership of the property. I do agree that treating rights as propositions is somewhat problematic, as in order to be transferable, they would have in some sense to be self-referential, which can be the first step on the road to paradox (No offense intended to the Cretans on the list). If we treat 'that' as a proposition forming operator, an alienable right r to reproduce a work w might be expressed as: r = that[∀x.possess(x,r) → ◇reproduce(x,w)] [where ◇ is the deontic handwaving operator]. This formulation does not express the ability to further transfer the right; contexts can make things easier to express. Simon
