Father teaches daughter a lesson about facebook...

[jsmirman]

217. Hope He Backed Up. Otherwise, she can probably sue him!

I don't know why I didn't think of this before.

The laptop may or may not be her property. It may be something he owns that she is using at his allowance - or it may be a gift that he gave her which became her property.

But what she created using the laptop - thoughts recorded, photos saved, poems written, anything of that sort - those things are her property.

Every one of the things described above constitute intellectual property that belongs to the person who created them, not to the person who bought the laptop.

If he didn't back up and if he destroyed her intellectual property, that is not something that is within his rights.

Now, proving the value of those materials is another thing, and crossing the streams of intellectual property with a concept like "sentimental value" is far from my area of expertise. However, I do know that regular property can be credited with value for having "sentimental value."

There are a few crazy causes of action I can think of that might also exist - but I mention this one as solidly outside the realm of crazy.

If he didn't back up, he destroyed a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't belong to him.