Intellectual Property Law

What are my rights on Stolen Property?

I purchased a laptop 2 years ago from a Power seller on eBay for £500. The positive feedback and the number of transactions gave me confidence to purchase this particular item. However this morning I received a visit from the Metropolitan Police (who were appearing on behalf of the Nottingham Police Force) that the laptop I had purchased was actually stolen. They requested that I hand it over as part of their evidence for their case. I bought the Laptop in good faith, unknowing it was stolen. I have 2 years worth of photos, emails, videos and documents that I have to give up? Please advise me on what steps I can take.

Public Comments

1. If you received stolen property, you've got to give it up. You should have gotten your stuff off of it before you turned it in.
2. In United States the property still belongs to the person from whom it was stolen.
3. None, it does not belong to you. Not your fault, just unfortunate.
4. sorry mate you not got any rights if its stolen. witch is wrong as you did not no it was at the time you got sorry
5. The only thing I can advice is to buy a USB external hard drive and Copy all your information. I think they will let you at least copy that information. Good luck and sorry to hear about that. :(
6. all of the information / files /photos etc on the laptop still belong to you, so you should ask the police if you can take them off before you hand it in
7. You can save all those documents on a disc. I would also suggest filing charges yourself against the person who stole the thing and sold it to you. I don't know what kind of compensation might be collected but it may help put this person in jail longer.
8. if belongs to the real owner of the laptop and so you have to give it up to the police. you, however, can sue the ebay seller for any damage or loss to you..... i learnt this from my commerical laws class......