Personal property Personal property is a type of
property. In the
common law systems personal property may also be called
chattels. It is distinguished from
real property, or
real estate. In the
civil law systems personal property is often called
movable property or movables – any property that can be moved from one location or another. This term is used to distinguish property that different from
immovable property or immovables, such as land and buildings. This also means the direct owner of the item(s) is in full control of them/it until either stolen,
confiscated by
law enforcement, or destroyed. Personal property may be classified in a variety of ways, such as
goods,
money,
negotiable instruments,
securities, and
intangible assets including
choses in action.
Land ownership Real estate or
immovable property is a
legal term (in some jurisdictions) that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as
buildings. Real estate (immovable property) is often considered synonymous with
real property. However, for technical purposes, some people prefer to distinguish real estate, referring to the land and fixtures themselves, from real property, referring to ownership rights over real estate. The terms
real estate and
real property are used primarily in
common law, while
civil law jurisdictions refer instead to
immovable property. In law, the word
real means relating to a thing (from
Latin reālis, ultimately from
rēs, 'matter' or 'thing'), as distinguished from a person. Thus the law broadly distinguishes between
real property (land and anything affixed to it) and
personal property (everything else, e.g., clothing, furniture, money). The conceptual difference is between immovable property, which would transfer title along with the land, and movable property, which a person would retain title to. With the development of private
property ownership, real estate has become a major area of
business.
Corporations and legal entities An individual or group of individuals can own shares in corporations and other
legal entities, but do not necessarily own the entities themselves. A legal entity is a
legal construct through which the law allows a group of
natural persons to act as if it were an
individual for certain purposes. Some duly incorporated entities may not be owned by individuals nor by other entities; they exist without being owned once they are created. Not being owned, they cannot be bought and sold. Mutual life insurance companies,
credit unions,
foundations and
cooperatives, not for profit organizations, and public corporations are examples of this. No person can purchase the company, as their ownership is not legally available for sale, neither as shares nor as a single whole.
Intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) refers to a legal entitlement which sometimes attaches to the
expressed form of an
idea, or to some other
intangible subject matter. This legal entitlement generally enables its holder to exercise
exclusive rights of use in relation to the subject matter of the IP. The term intellectual property reflects the idea that this subject matter is the product of the
mind or the intellect, and that IP rights may be protected at law in the same way as any other form of
property. Intellectual property
laws confer a
bundle of
exclusive rights in relation to the particular form or manner in which ideas or information are expressed or manifested, and not in relation to the ideas or concepts themselves (see
idea-expression divide). The term "intellectual property" denotes the specific legal rights which authors, inventors and other IP holders may hold and exercise, and not the intellectual work itself. Intellectual property laws are designed to protect different forms of intangible subject matter, although in some cases there is a degree of overlap. •
Copyright may subsist in creative and artistic works (e.g.
books,
movies,
music,
paintings,
photographs and
software), giving a
copyright holder the exclusive right to control reproduction or adaptation of such works for a certain period of time. • A
patent may be granted in relation to an
invention that is new, useful and not simply an obvious advancement over what existed when the application was filed. A patent gives the holder an
exclusive right to
commercially exploit the invention for a certain period of time (typically 20 years from the filing date of a
patent application). • A
trademark is a distinctive
sign which is used to distinguish the products or services of one
business from those of another business. • An
industrial design right protects the form of appearance, style or design of an industrial object (e.g.
spare parts,
furniture or
textiles). • A
trade secret (also known as "
confidential information") is an item of confidential information concerning the commercial practices or
proprietary knowledge of a business. Patents, trademarks and designs fall into a particular subset of intellectual property known as
industrial property. Like other forms of property, intellectual property (or rather the exclusive rights which subsist in the IP) can be transferred (
with or
without consideration) or
licensed to third parties. In some
jurisdictions it is possible to use intellectual property as
collateral for a
loan. The basic
public policy rationale for the protection of intellectual property is that IP laws facilitate and encourage disclosure of
innovation into the
public domain for the
common good, by granting
authors and
inventors exclusive rights to exploit their works and invention for a limited period. However, various schools of thought are critical of the very concept of intellectual property, and some characterise IP as
intellectual protectionism. There is ongoing debate as to whether IP laws truly operate to confer the stated public benefits, and whether the protection they are said to provide is appropriate in the context of innovation derived from such things as
traditional knowledge and folklore, and patents for
software and
business methods. Manifestations of this
controversy can be seen in the way different
jurisdictions decide whether to grant intellectual property protection in relation to subject matter of this kind, and the stark divide on issues of the role and scope of intellectual property laws.
Chattel slavery The term "Slavery" is commonly understood to refer to chattel slavery. The living
human body is, in modern societies, considered something which cannot be the property of anyone but the
person whose body it is. Its opposite, in which the person in the body does not own their body, is
chattel slavery. Chattel slavery was defined as the absolute legal ownership of a person, including the legal right to buy and sell them. Persons who were so enslaved did not have the
freedom to direct their own actions, and their legal rights were either severely limited or nonexistent. The
Antebellum period in the
United States is considered both the worst for the exploitation of chattel slaves, and also where the practice aroused such fierce opposition and support that it led to the
American Civil War. Chattel slavery is currently (2020) illegal in every country in the world. However, until the 19th century slavery in one form or another existed in most societies and was thought of as the normal state of things; slaves of whatever
ethnicity were considered
racially inferior. Notwithstanding the illegality of enslavement,
virtual slavery still exists in various forms today, although called by other names. ==Critical views==