The analogy used in this article is too ill-fitting to find compelling. It does prompt me to wonder to what extent a person's digital traces left upon the world

The analogy used in this article is too ill-fitting to find compelling. It does prompt me to wonder to what extent a person's digital traces left upon the world could be construed as a creative output that they own as a form of intellectual property, like a form of artistic expression. That analogy too seems tortured, unless possibly you're Nietzsche. But it seems less ill-suited than trying to compare one's data traces to a material good.