Comment by aspenmayer

How one adjudicates ownership or authorship disputes under copyright is fundamentally different than disputes about land and property ownership. We can go to records and so on in each case, but a resolution would be different in each case, because they are different sorts of potential violations or transgressions.

I don’t think it’s as clear who is at fault if I mention “he who must not be named” in a hypothetical scenario where Harry Potter was never published, and then start telling people about the manuscript I found. If I violated someone’s rights to privacy or property to get or keep the original manuscript, that’s one thing, but merely having it even if the author didn’t want me to have it as a copy especially is another issue. If I never published it but merely described it to others, I’m not sure if I’m any less culpable, but it seems like I should be.

I’m not sure how much more I can explore your thought experiment, but I appreciate you for sharing it with me.