If you borrow something but can&#39;t contact the owner to return it, does it become yours? Do I become the owner of a device someone lets me borrow if I can't return it? Say someone lets me borrow their iPad since I need an Apple platform for a project. They say I don't need to return it soon since it's an older one they don't really use anymore. Months later, I try contacting the person more than one time on Facebook Messenger, letting them know I'll be at a place to return the device if they want it back, but they ignore the messages by leaving me on read (i.e., they view the messages without replying). In examples such as the above where you borrow a device and contact someone so you can return it, but such attempts are clearly ignored by the owner, are you legally permitted to consider the device yours, now? If not, would you be guilty of larceny if you assumed ownership, or would you only be guilty if the original owner wanted it back, but you refused?
&quot;become yours&quot; - Which court are you in? The court of the schoolyard? If you're in real court, then You would need to sue, to quiet title When a bona-fide dispute as to ownership exists, a case can be brought before a judge to resolve ownership definitively. The axiom of a quiet title action is that you must notify all parties who could possibly have an interest. Really, notification is 7/8 of it, because by the time you arrive at a &quot;quiet title&quot; action, most likely they either lost interest or are gone. And the crux of &quot;Notify&quot; is that your efforts to notify the party are to the standards of the court. You are a hostile party, noting your interests are in conflict with theirs. (we must fairly assume they want their iPad back; you want to take the iPad). Thus, it is obvious you will prefer to fail in your efforts at contact, and you will do a bad job of it, possibly on purpose. Since parties in a lawsuit are responsible to serve all documents on each other, courts have very high standards for that. And these standards are tested and gamed all the time. I even had a clever plaintiff do it to me! (we were expecting both the appeal and the dis-service). The crux of document service is you hire a licensed, third-party independent process server. A process server is naturally good at skip-tracing (think &quot;Dog: the Process Server&quot;) and is accustomed to finding people who are actively hiding. (because some people think they can avoid consequences by evading service. That's a loser's game generally.) So, when you show up in court and they aren't there, the judge will ask &quot;did you serve them?&quot; And then you say &quot;yes&quot;, name the company, and if needed call the process server to the stand, and the server reads out of their notebook all the things they did to search for the counterparty.
But lately he has had his friend use my PayPal account. Someone will send me money and then I transfer it to where he tells me. To cash app or venmo. That's money laundering. Definitely illegal. He said it's money owed for cellphones. People in jail aren't supposed to have cellphones. You are helping him break the law, which means you are helping him break the law.
The most minimal elements of theft are: An unauthorised taking or use of another's property; and An intent to permanently deprive that person of that property or its use You've authorised the fee as per the terms of service that you agreed to. If you didn't read the terms of service, you are deemed to have read it. As the first element is not satisifed, no, it's not theft. As to what that fee is for, it's not really a question of law, but because they're a business and they are entitled to recover the costs of providing products or services and make a profit when you use their products or services, I fairly confidently would say that they're charging you to recover the costs of providing you their products and services as well as to make a profit from your use of their products and services. But again, not a question of law.
Do fans legally have any ownership rights? Generally, no. It can be done if an agreement of the team is put into place when the team is founded or if the current owner agrees to it (which can then be binding on whomever the team is sold/transferred to). There are some leagues, such as the Bundesliga (Thank you Nij, for the correction; Sports in general are not my thing) where the clubs must be owned by fans, at least 51%. So it can be done, but cannot be forced on an owner against their will, unless such a covenant is agreed to before they take possession of the club. It can be required for a given club to join/participate in a given league. Legally, supporting a club via buying club merch and match tickets give an ownership interest in the items bought, not in the club/team itself.
You own it In general, if you own an object, you can do what you like with it if you otherwise comply with the law. It is possible that a particular object may be protected under heritage or similar law, but if it isn’t, and you comply with environmental and safety law, you grind that thing into dust if you want to. Of course, if it did, you would never be able to delete a voicemail, email, or throw out used notepaper - they’re all copyright.
Assuming that the owner of the hard drive (irrespective of if that owner is a government or private person) is legally entitled to take possession of the hard drive then they can do so subject to the fact that they generally cannot commit a crime to do so (e.g. trespass or damage to property). If the person in possession of the hard drive refuses to hand it over, the owner can seek a court order to seize it - this may allow trespass etc. Any IP on the hard drive that doesn't belong to the owner of the drive is still protected by all relevant IP laws. For example, the owner of the drive cannot copy copyright material without permission unless it is in accordance with fair use/fair dealing rules.
Of course it doesn't work. You haven't discovered an end-around to property ownership I gave someone a car and want it back (they refuse) You no longer own this car. It is now titled in their name. Your interest in the car is now exactly zero whether or not they paid for it. I use a shell company to buy my own debt Okay. This has nothing to do with the car. You're now out of the cash it took you to set up this new entity. How are you doing this? I assume it means paying off your creditors with money you already have. You will also have to come up with some type of bogus documents that explain to the future court why this was even done. If you have the money, why do you have debt? My shell company sues me for conveying the car to conceal it from creditors Um, Ok. Now you're also out filing fees. Let's assume you know how to do this without paying an attorney to do it for you. I settle Makes sense, since you're suing yourself. The shell company now gets a court order to seize the car Seize the car how? This is a stretch. A judgement would be against you for the value of the car. You can't settle a lawsuit using assets you do not own. A court won't order something repossessed because of an unrelated squirrelly lawsuit. An exception would be a bankruptcy court that rules the item was sold or disposed of outside the court's orders. I would expect an astute court to hit you with contempt or sanctions for trying to use it to further your interests with some sort of end-around to property ownership. Expect more fees for this use of the court's time. The shell seizes the car No. Now I have the car back No.
You don't state a jurisdiction, but the following will apply in most common-law jurisdictions. If you entered with permission, picked up the bird and walked out with it without any objections then a charge of theft would not stick; you were simply reclaiming your own property with the permission of the householder. However from your post that doesn't sound likely. If your ex objects to you taking the bird then they can call the police. The police will refuse to get involved in arguments about ownership and will just act to preserve the status quo ante. As long as you haven't broken in or acted deceitfully then you haven't committed a crime, but they are unlikely to let you take the bird as long as the person with possession claims legal title. If you try to &quot;steal it back&quot; then you will be guilty of theft, and possibly burglary, criminal damage and maybe other crimes depending on how you did it. Don't go there. You probably need to file some kind of civil case for the return of your property. Details will depend on the jurisdiction, but if you can get a court order for possession then the police should accept that as evidence that you are acting legally when you turn up to reclaim your property. However (again, depending on jurisdiction) you might need to hire a specialist to do the actual repossession; the laws about gaining entry, searching property etc tend to be complicated and you don't want to get on the wrong side of them. This is all on the assumption that the value of the bird is lower than the likely cost of hiring a lawyer. If this is an expensive bird then you need legal advice.