It definitely belongs to someone. To the person holding it (provided that it wasn't stolen). Just as any other actual thing. Except for borrowed items.
Your definition of data ownership certainly is a definition, but it's far from obvious or mainstream. If you texted an intimate photo to an ex, do you consider them as the owner of the photo, meaning that they're allowed to do whatever they want with that photo (as ownership typically implies)?
Basically only borrowed and stolen. Stealing (actual stealing) is a crime by itself. And it doesn't make sense to borrow data. If somebody borrows you a song, you can just make copy yourself and the copy is yours. Which is how reality always worked. Didn't you have a casette player with two slots? Those weren't for playing two tapes simultaneously. Is the new generation so brainwashed by virtual world of fictional intelectual property, terms and conditions nobody reads and licenses which claim to be source of your rights and don't give you any, that they have forgotten how information exchange actually works in the real world?
> which ignores a bunch of history and legal precedent establishing exactly what it is people mean when they say somebody owns something.
I think copyright ignored more. And doesn't reflect reality on top of that.
> but it's far from obvious or mainstream
It's obvious and spontaneously created by anyone who deals with data and doesn't know or care about the (stupid) concept of intelectual property. "Do you have the file?" What does it mean intuitively? Yes, I have it. I can make you a copy.
> If you texted an intimate photo to an ex, do you consider them as the owner of the photo
Yes. Obviously. Just as much as I am. Thinking otherwise would be believing falsehoods about reality.
> meaning that they're allowed to do whatever they want with that photo (as ownership typically implies)?
They obviously can do with it whatever they want to. Are they allowed? Is the sun allowed to rise up in the morning? What's use there is to forbidding it?
They can do thousand copies or delete it from existence. They can modify it. Print it. Whatever.
When they publish it. Well, what happens next depends entirely about whether I'm entitled to protection of things I consider private from being publicized. Or if I'm protected from harassment. I might be or I might not be. However whatever protections I am awarded in that regard have nothing to do with general rules about the data. If I harass a person with a megaphone that I own it still could be illegal.
> They obviously can do with it whatever they want to. Are they allowed? Is the sun allowed to rise up in the morning? What's use there is to forbidding it?
I obviously can go around punching people in the face on the street. What use is there to forbidding that? Perhaps that it's beneficial for society to discourage people from doing certain things?
As for ignoring history, are you aware that patents (N.b. copyright is far from the only law that applies to intellectual property) were created in order to encourage people to share their ideas, with the incentive of an exclusive right to them for a number of years? Because exactly the sort of "free for all" rights you are arguing for meant a huge incentive to keeping everything as secret as possible.
> Thinking otherwise would be believing falsehoods about reality.
There is no "ground truth" to ownership (neither for data nor physical property), only what people as a collective consider it to be. I'd say you're the one believing a falsehood about ownership, given that your position is in the definite minority.
Finally, can you explain what you think stealing is? Why is it a crime for me to take one bike to work but not the other, if they both stand unlocked outside the building?