Whether true or not, somewhere along the line we learn that "possession is nine tenths of the law", and perhaps inevitably we attempt to translate that concept to the internet. But it's difficult to say that we actually possess a file when we hold a floppy disk (okay, none of those anymore, let's say a CD) with that file in our hands, let alone when we know that it's stored away someplace in the vastness of cyberspace, even if that someplace is very readily accessible. That being the case, we continue to assume that having something on our hard drive is somehow "more real" than simply knowing how to get to it.