Ownership

I have been thinking about ownership.

Not in the playground sense of “that’s mine”, but in the more awkward philosophical sense. What does it actually mean to own something? Do we own matter, ideas, patterns, or simply a legally enforceable right to exclude other people?

At school it sounded simple. You buy a thing. It becomes yours. End of story. But ownership turns out not to be a solid block. It is a bundle of rights, carefully sliced.

Most of what we own are copies. I own my copy of a novel, not the novel itself. I own my particular car, not the model in the abstract. I cannot decide to print more books or manufacture another dozen cars just because I paid for one. I own the token, not the type.

Even uniqueness does not solve this. If I buy an original painting, I own the canvas and paint. I do not automatically own the copyright. The artist may still reproduce it. Physical singularity does not eliminate intellectual ownership.

Which brings me to my house.

This is not a production-line semi replicated down a cul-de-sac. It is a one-off. Designed for this plot, for our habits, for our slightly particular tastes. The architect designed it to my specifications. My brief. My insistence on light, proportion and a few maritime flourishes that probably caused discreet eyebrow movement. I walked the land. I described what I wanted. The architect translated that into drawings.

The Land Registry confirms I own the land and the building. When the roof leaks, it consults me directly. In every practical sense, this house is mine.

And yet.

Although I own the only physical instance of it, I may not automatically own the design. The architect, as author of the drawings, typically retains copyright unless it is expressly assigned. Paying for the design gives you the right to build this house on this site. It does not necessarily give you the right to build another identical one elsewhere.

So if I were seized by an entrepreneurial twitch and decided to construct a second version in a neighbouring field, I might discover that I cannot legally replicate my own house without permission. I own the bricks, the glass, the hinges and the heating bills. I can repaint it, extend it, sell it. I control the physical reality. But the architectural pattern that produced it may sit, in law, elsewhere.

That is the quietly comic discovery.

Even when you stray from owning copies into owning something unique, ownership remains layered. You can possess the only example in existence and still not possess the right to reproduce it.

So I remain master of my castle, firmly in the singular.

The plural, it seems, requires paperwork.