I look at the whole thing in another way.
When I buy a paper book, I actually own the paper, not the book. In effect I can't rewrite the story, I can't use the characters in another book I write and so on.
When I own the paper, I get an implicit license for a limited use of what's written in the paper (I can read it, but if the ink fades, I lose it and I cannot have another free or warranty covered copy; and I still own the paper).
Being the legal owner of that bunch of paper sheets, I can do what I want with it, even to light a fire.
I'm not the owner of the printed words in it.
The implicit license for the limited use of the book goes with the paper. So, if I lend or resell the paper, the new owner gets the limited license too.
The same applies to e-books. I own the disk where the book is stored, I can sell it, lend it or burn it. But I can't do nothing withe content of the book (not even read it in the device of my choice, in some cases).
So when I buy the e-book, I'm buying the bytes of it, non its content. Actually I'm buyng nothing at all (and I pay a fair price for it!!!!). The e-books, which I don't own, comes with an explicit license for a very limited use (more limited than p-book...).
An e-book is more like a movie theater ticket than a p-book.
The difference is in the fact you can read a book more than once with the same ticket, but sooner or later it will be changed and reders will be charged per page display.
