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Originally Posted by BoldlyDubious
I am not getting the point you're making.
According to my proposal, the "digital file" is just another representation of a work of art, such as a DVD or a book. So when you buy your own copy of the book you get a collection of 0s and 1s -on a physical support provided by the vendor or by yourself- that represent just that: a copy of the contents of the book. You don't get the right to publish the book as well.
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My point is that there's a fundamental difference between a file and a book (the object). It's not an object per se. It's certainly not a static object. Almost anything you do with a file involves some form of copying. To read it you need to copy parts of it into memory (and to the screen). Handling it often involves destroying/re-creating or moving the 0s and 1s that represent the file. So it's almost impossible to point to a series of bits and say "that, there is my copy of the file". OTOH you can point to a shelf where you've got a physical book or a DVD.
So you can't "own" a file in the way your can "own" a physical object. What you can do is make copies of it and move them around in various physical media. To do that you need to have the right to make those copies. This right is something you can own, we call it copyright. You can also exercise this right under license.
I think it's confusing to talk about comparison with a physical book when the things you want to have (the ability to lend, share etc) come as a consequence of the physical nature of the book combined with an inherent difficulty in copying. I can physically give you a book and thus lend it to you. I can't actually physically give you a file, I can only copy the representation of it on one physical media to another, or give you my physical media.
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...or are you saying that when you buy a DVD of Star Wars you become the owner of Lucasfilms' rights on the saga?!??
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No I'm saying that in order to copy the contents of it around as a FILE I'd need those rights, be licensed under those rights or be operating under legal exceptions to those rights (fair use/fair dealing etc).