A certain book came my way, and in the course of its discussion it writes as follows:
“Now it is worth introducing that the concept of ownership is not something that comes only through specific Torah passages. For example, with those two women who came before King Solomon for judgment over whose child was the living one and whose was the dead one. That is, a mother is an owner with respect to her son, but her ownership is not like ordinary ownership, where she can sell him or make use of him; rather, all her ownership exists only in her holding her son with her. So why do we not ask, from where do we know this matter, that a son is in his mother’s ownership, and what gives rise to the idea that she can claim in court to keep her son with her? And where were the boundaries of that ownership established, such that we understand she cannot sell him or make use of him, but only keep him with her?
And of course this is no question at all, for the concept of ‘his’ refers to something that lies within a person’s domain, and there are things that by their very essence fall within a person’s domain and require no special passage at all. The entire form of ownership that exists in usage, sale, and so on is all part of an existing understanding of the boundaries of the concept in itself—how a person’s boundary exists. And there is room to understand that with objects, the meaning is that all their uses are given over to him, whereas his ownership over his son is only in the sense that the son is given over to be with him. So too, the fact that a person owns himself has no source in a verse (though admittedly it is inferred from the laws of injury and other matters concerning a person, but of course that is not needed). It is a simple and basic matter that all concepts of ownership come only after the person stands as his own self and in his own ownership, and only after that do the various domains of authority come to define how and in what way property is held by each person.
And if there is such a concept as ‘copyright,’ that a person owns a creation as well—not only in the sense of encroachment—even though there is no physical object in his possession, this too can be understood in that a person’s domain is not limited specifically to possession of existing property, but can also exist in an idea. On the other hand, the boundaries of such a domain are also determined by the nature of the matter, for it is obvious that a person who created a particular melody does not own the melody in the sense of being able to tell others not to play that same melody. Rather, the injury to his domain depends on the matter—whether in preventing copying, or in taking away sales, and the like. Consider someone who owns Bitcoin coins: is there anyone who would permit breaking into his virtual ‘domain’ and robbing him of his property? There is no doubt that this is outright theft. So too, any intrusion into another person’s virtual domain (which he uses for livelihood) is outright theft. And this is for the reason stated: a property-domain is a person’s sphere, and a sphere can exist in this way too; it does not require specifically tangible possession of the thing.
And all the matters in the chapter ‘One may not dig’ come on account of this idea, based on the understanding that ownership of land is not grasped in the same way as ownership of movable property. A person cannot relate to his land according to boundaries that he sets by a fence, and then within that fence say that he alone is the owner and has nothing to do with the rest of the world, and may even dig down to the depths and destroy all his surroundings under the claim, ‘I am doing this in my own property, and you have no business with me at all.’ The reason he cannot do so is that ownership of land is not grasped as a certain enclosed domain established by the boundaries of a fence. Rather, it also has a relationship to its surroundings, and anyone who buys land, on the one hand his domain is limited, for it cannot exist by itself without relation to its surroundings; and on the other hand his boundary is broader, and he can claim against his surroundings that they not harm him, and they will not be considered as merely acting within their own property. For when a person buys land, his domain exists in interaction with the environment, and the chapter ‘One may not dig’ comes to establish the boundaries of how a person’s domain exists in relation to its surroundings.
And so too the laws in the chapter ‘The Partners,’ where any of the residents of a town can be compelled to spend money on a gatehouse and the like. In the plain sense this is by law, and is not a special enactment for each specific detail, because a person does not live for himself alone within his own domain. Rather, a person has a relationship with his surroundings, and when he lives in a city he has a relationship with others, and the domain is not his alone but everyone’s together. It is as though it is acquired to them for this purpose, that he must contribute expenses for maintaining the city. And the coercion here is not because an obligation was imposed on him as a commandment, but the opposite: he cannot live in the city without also himself taking care of the city’s needs, and he is regarded as holding them back by living in the city while not spending money on the city’s expenses. This could be elaborated on at length, but I have been brief.”