You mean like if say the design of the chair were protected via intellectual property law? Isn't that sort of the point? That people want to use the law to minimize competition and gain greater market power?

You couldn't stick your chair out on your porch and sit on it because that would be a "public performance"...

And of, course, if the chair had an encrypted cushion on it, you couldn't sit on the chair unless you used the cushion [courtesy of the DMCA]...

You couldn't re-cover the chair with different fabric, because that would be a derivative work.

Test post, I keep getting failures.

"Your comment could n-o-t be submitted due to questionable content: n-o-t." I appreciate the emphasis on positive thinking, but eliminating the "n" word?

If you promised n-o-t to do certain things with the chair as a condition of receiving it, then you should be bound by your promise. For example, maybe the chair was an heirloom of the seller and you promised to take good care of it. Or maybe the seller had hand-crafted the chair, only makes and sells a few every year, and he'll only sell to people who promise n-o-t to leave the chair outside in the rain. We used to sell puppies and we'd make people agree to a long list of conditions about taking care of the dogs.

In general, in any such purchase, whether of physical or intellectual property, we should leave maximum freedom for the parties involved to agree about whatever terms they see fit. A piece of intellectual property may be transferred with few or no limitations; a piece of physical property may be transferred with a great many conditions. There is no intrinsic difference between intellectual and physical property on this issue.