> Just a few counterexamples from the top of my head: Destroying currency, altering passports, reproducing copyrighted images. These aren't counterexamples, th

> Just a few counterexamples from the top of my head: Destroying currency, altering passports, reproducing copyrighted images. These aren't counterexamples, they prove the rule. A US passport literally has the text "this passport is the property of the United States" printed inside of it, and I imagine the same is true in most countries: you are the recipient of a passport, not the owner of one. The same applies to copyrighted images— when you purchase a book you own the physical copy and can fully subject it to your own will, but you don't own the right to make additional copies of it. You own the copy, not the intellectual property. As for currency, it may not legally be the property of the US government like a passport, but I would argue that the fact that you can't modify it does in fact mean that you don't own the bill, the bill is a representation of an abstraction of "money" that you do own.