Ownership vs Possession of bitcoins

[defxor]

your legal opinions aren't worth anything

which you can all take with a grain of salt

then sure.

Thank you for the time you took in contributing nothing. I can only hope you're on retainer

[luv2drnkbr]

I don't understand all the discussion about "law" here.  Of what meaning or use is a law that is completely unenforceable?  Is it really even a law?  At that point it is merely a psychological weapon made to have the masses feel bad about doing something in hopes that they won't do it for that reason.  Of course, that certainly works, but I don't like referring to that as a law.  It is a psychological manipulation without physical consequence, and those who do not feel any need to conform to the "law" suffer no consequences.  (As an aside, this is one of many examples of why psychopathy is evolutionarily advantageous, which should really scare us all...)

[mizerydearia]

If Intersango didn't want to give BenDavis 511 bitcoins, they would write code that doesn't give it away so freely.

See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40934.msg520870#msg520870

[the founder]

This discussion is almost irrelevant ...  Mt.Gox has possession of  your bitcoins when you upload them there....  they don't own them... but they technically have possession of them for that time.

[Gabi]

The thief has admitted.

Really? I only see an internet account writing things, if it was a scam then the "thief" can very well be a part of the scam

[elggawf]

you are the rightful owner (unless you stole the wallet)

Why?

Why do you choose to draw the line in the sand there? If you follow your line of argument to it's logical conclusion, every reason you could give for a software glitch transferring legitimate ownership of the Bitcoins could be applied to someone else coming into possession of your wallet.dat as well.

You just choose to draw the line at wallet.dat thievery, while others draw it a bit further back.