Originally Posted by
laserlight
Ah, but Mario F.'s scenario has us in a situation where we can freely distribute what we own without depriving ourselves of ownership of the item. Remember, you have to suspend what is currently the case in law, and consider the hypothesis where "software became recognized as a physical object". So, what we see here is a problem: if software is a physical object, then it is a strange physical object indeed.
Again, you made the same mistake as CornedBee: we are considering Mario F.'s hypothesis, that is, software is real and tangible property. Under this scenario, it is not covered by copyright law (though the invention behind the software may be covered by a patent).