Commercial software (with a long tradition) is based on that idea. And Free software is based on the same idea, only that you renounce to that ownership right.
Free software is a hack on a legal system to provide something that should work this way by default. And commercial software could get away with being based on that idea because they could enforce it, and only as long as they could.
Which is why at first it worked, then it stopped thanks to the Internet, and now it's working again, because everyone's moving to SaaS model. Which, by the way, is a step backwards in progress.
