If someone gives up possession of some property is ownership also forfeited if no return is agreed beforehand?

Question

Someone I know posted a cassette tape to someone they met on an internet forum, for them to transfer to mp3, have they relinquished ownership rights if they did not specify the person return them, is possession really nine-tenths of the law as the old adage goes?

Answer 1

In law, ownership is forfeit only in two circumstances:
(i) an express relinquishing of any property rights or;
(ii) acting in a way which is unequivocally inconsistent with retaining property rights.

An example of the first is signing a deed passing (or selling) your house to someone else, an example of the second is abandonment (itself a legal concept).

In your example, the receiver of the tape merely becomes a gratuitous baillee of the tape and is obliged to return it on demand.

As to the 'old adage'; that emerges from adverse possession rules, whereby the occupier of land could acquire outright legal ownership and the true owner would require legal process (very expensive back then) to evict him.

Answer 2

Can the person who sent the tape prove that it is theirs? Beyond simply saying 'Thats mine'. They haven't necesarily given up ownership rights, but how they PROVE ownership when trying to get it back. Without any contract or sales reciept, etc. the person holding the tape can claim to be the owner and there isn't much to be done about it.

Answer 3

Unless they actually own the content (Music they have copyrighted) they are probably out of luck; hopefully they were smart enough to make a copy BEFORE they sent it,.