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e-stuff: why knowledge is all

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There are more ways of considering digital property than there are commentators, as Roderick Ramage explains

When you put a coin in a newsvendor’s hand and take the proffered paper, you create a contract, the subject matter of which is a tangible object, a newspaper. The newspaper itself contains intangible property in the form of reports, articles, pictures, cartoons etc, the copyright in which belongs to the newspaper publisher or its contributors, which you may read but which you are not entitled to copy except for fair use or dealing. Similarly, if you buy a ticket to enter a concert hall or a motor car, you acquire a tangible object and with it some benefits in respect of intangible property. Broadly speaking, all that has changed over the millennia is the medium through which intangible property is delivered.

Knowing what you have

Tangible property consists mainly of computers (including desk- and laptops, tablets and smartphones) mobiles, 3D printers, memory devices, modems, power sources (transformers), cabling etc.

Intangible property includes almost

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Arc Pensions Law—Matthew Swynnerton

Arc Pensions Law—Matthew Swynnerton

Chair of the Association of Pension Lawyers joins as partner

Ampa Group—Kamal Chauhan

Ampa Group—Kamal Chauhan

Group names Shakespeare Martineau partner head of Sheffield office

Blake Morgan—four promotions

Blake Morgan—four promotions

Four legal directors promoted to partner across UK offices

NEWS

The abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC

Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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