"I of course agree to this extent, but I don't quite agree with the typical progression of this argument which sees the fact that most Free Software is given away or distributed under terms which allow free copying and sharing to be an affront to this right to compensation.
"Ignoring for the moment the fact that the software developer still gets to choose whether to distribute under those terms (something (s)he'd be able to do to a large extent even if copyright was abolished today), this argument fails to take into account the fundamental nature of software which excludes it from the possibility of being owned, unless you consider a program as one with the medium.
"Software cannot exist on its own. It always needs a medium. Software are simply arrangements of ones and zeros represented one way or another by physical properties of a medium such as micro or nanoscopic dents in a compact disk. If you consider software as distinct from the storage media or memory in which it remains you're essentially using one medium, your brain, to conceptualize the arrangements within another. Without either the brain or the other mediums the software could not exist to begin with. How do you own something that doesn't really exist?"
