I'm arguing that the analogue should be there. When I mail a letter to someone it's just a physical manifestation of the information. The fact that it's physical is a by-product of the transfer medium. I don't feel like rights should be lost just because we can represent the content of that letter as an email, and send it over a 'series of tubes.'

If I store files on Dropbox, I am arguably paying for them to store the files for me, not giving them to Dropbox to do with what they like. It should not be treated any differently than a rented storage space in the physical world (regardless of implementation details like de-duplication).

Here is where you get into the tricky difference between what makes sense, and legal definitions. You may very well be right- I certainly feel you are. But that line of reasoning must be established by legal means.

It's like right now you have the idea, but haven't written the code.