Property Outlaws: How Squatters, Pirates, and Protesters Improve the Law of Ownership

by Eduardo M. Peñalver, Sonia Katyal

Property Outlaws puts forth the intriguingly counterintuitive proposition that, in the case of both tangible and intellectual property law, disobedience can often lead to an improvement in legal regulation. The authors argue that in property law there is a tension between the competing demands of stability and dynamism, but its tendency is to become static and fall out of step with the needs of society.

 

The authors employ wide-ranging examples of the behaviors of “property outlaws”—the trespasser, squatter, pirate, or file-sharer—to show how specific behaviors have induced legal innovation. They also delineate the similarities between the actions of property outlaws in the spheres of tangible and intellectual property. An important conclusion of the book is that a dynamic between the activities of “property outlaws” and legal innovation should be cultivated in order to maintain this avenue of legal reform.

Genres: Nonfiction

294 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Eduardo Peñalver is John P. Wilson Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He received his B.A. from Cornell University and his law degree from Yale Law School. Between college and law school, he studied philosophy and theology as a Rhodes Scholar at Oriel College, Oxford. Upon completing law school, he clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and at the Supreme Court for Justice John Paul Stevens. His scholarship focuses on property and land use, as well as law and religion. His work explores the way in which the law mediates the interests of individuals and communities. His writing on property has appeared in numerous leading law journals. His book, Property Outlaws (co-authored with Sonia Katyal), published by Yale University Press in February 2010, explores the vital role of disobedience within the evolution of property law. His most recent book, An Introduction to Property Theory (co-authored with Gregory Alexander), was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011. Professor Peñalver joined the Chicago faculty in 2013. Before arriving in Chicago, he taught at Cornell Law School (2006-2012) and Fordham Law School (2003-2006). He has also been a visiting professor at the Harvard and Yale Law Schools.

Reviews

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book about two related topics: testing the limits of the laws on real property (including, besides squatters, civil rights activists who “trespassed” on lunch counters) and testing the limits of the laws on intellectual property. Each of the groups of people who test these limits can be further divided in two: acquisitive outlaws (who are primarily seeking personal gain, such as people downloading music for free) and expressive outlaws (who are primarily or solely seeking to make a point and to change the law).

The authors raise some valuable issues concerning all four kinds of property outlaws, and they provide some useful suggestions for better dealing with the breaking of property laws, including lesser sanctions for trespass, targeting legal accommodation, the provision of alternative means for potential outlaws to express opposition to the legal status quo, recognition by owners of the justice of others' claims on their surplus property, doing away with the concept of bad-faith adverse possession, broadening the doctrine of necessity that allows people in distress to legally take property to satisfy their needs, etc.

[v]

didnt finish the last like 50 pages but i wont have to read anymore for my property class. really good book i recommend to anyone that cares about property (which will b very few ppl) (idk if i fully 100% care about it) (just kidding)