Property is legal exclusion, not mere exchangeable value

Evidence

When an uncopyrighted combination of words is published there is no general right to forbid other people repeating them - in other words there is no property in the combination or in the thoughts or facts that the words express. Property, a creation of law, does not arise from value, although exchangeable - a matter of fact. Many exchangeable values may be destroyed intentionally without compensation. Property depends upon exclusion by law from interference, anda person is not excluded from using any combination of words merely because someone has used it before, even if it took labor and genius to make it. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 2072

Categorization

• DEFINE: Justice Brandeis’s crisp definition of property as legal exclusion, sharply replying to the majority’s value-based quasi-property theory.
• XREF: connects to: Legislative power cannot take property without the owner’s consent — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 171; Property rights are limited to what one can use before spoilage — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 40; Economic property rights persist independent of legal recognition

Broader Connections

• Economic property rights persist independent of legal recognition #contradicts (0.95)
• Legislative power cannot take property without the owner’s consent #expands (0.85) — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 171
• Property rights are limited to what one can use before spoilage #expands (0.85) — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 40