I'd call it a unit of exchange for things which really are scarce. And even if we do do think of it as something which we have artificially imposed scarcity on, this is an exchange process people opt into willingly. You're still free to consider it non-scarce and worthless. Unlike IP, which is for restricting use by people whether they want to opt in or not.

Money existed before government began to interfere with it, and lots of people own gold and silver coins. Its probablt best to consider government fiat as a special case of pseudo-money.

I meant "government" in a much wider sense; perhaps "society-approved" might be a better way to put it.

That makes sense but then you can still own money that is a physical commodity like silver.