Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
My OED offers the following pre-Statute of Anne quotes for collateral (sense 5. Law):
Although I must admit when I wrote that last post I was thinking of less formal use of the concept ("he's good for it" sort of thing).
Of course, you are right that those types of rights are underwritten by tangible things, but once you introduce rights in place of the real thing thing you begin to introduce interesting complications. eg: if everyone wants their irrigation water at the same time (which is quite common) then you run into capacity issues. This sort of thing gets people playing fast and loose with timing and other details and we end up with something akin to Pratchett's "pork futures" (well, not really, but hopefully you get what I mean).
I see those early rights not as the same thing as IP rights, but as a necessary lead up to the possibilities of intangibles.
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History is full of cases where money lenders are unable to collect from nobles. Maybe someone would be willing to accept the right to hunt deer as collateral, but trying to enforce that right is a very different matter.