January 13, 2005 -- WE thought that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. But the news might have been lost on Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead, who last year ruled the late singer Aaliyah was an "asset" of her record company. The ruling allowed Blackground Records to sue the music video company that arranged the charter flight that crashed and killed the 22-year-old star in 2001, The Post's Dan Mangan reports. Edmead's head-scratching decision has just been scathingly tossed out by the Appellate Division, which wrote, "The concept that a person is a property asset of another is, of course, abhorrent to modern-day thinking. Courts almost universally reject the antiquated proprietary view of the master/servant relationship."

The concept that Aaliyah's creative output is an asset is OK (like how they own her songs), but herself? That's not right.