> I said that if you're only considering the cost to the recipient, then the same analysis could apply with equal validity to theft.
If I choose to redistribute a piece of software, there is zero opportunity cost to either me, the supplier, or to the receiver.
> Talent is both rival and excludable.
...No, it's really not. "Talent" isn't even a good; it's an attribute - the fact that you're using the word in this way makes me suspect you don't really understand the underlying economic principles.
> The marginal cost of transmitting the information is essentially nonexistent,
As is the cost of producing a copy, which cannot be said for physical goods.
> but the cost of producing it in the first place (which depends on a finite supply of talented time) must be taken into account
I understand that you're trying to draw a comparison to the logic behind drug patents, but when you're dealing with a good for which the redistribution and production of all units beyond the first has zero opportunity cost, artificially imposing (by fiat) a cost on the redistribution and production is neither feasible nor efficient[1]
[1] In the economic sense of the word, not the ways it's often used colloquially.
If I choose to redistribute a piece of software, there is zero opportunity cost to either me, the supplier, or to the receiver.
> Talent is both rival and excludable.
...No, it's really not. "Talent" isn't even a good; it's an attribute - the fact that you're using the word in this way makes me suspect you don't really understand the underlying economic principles.
> The marginal cost of transmitting the information is essentially nonexistent,
As is the cost of producing a copy, which cannot be said for physical goods.
> but the cost of producing it in the first place (which depends on a finite supply of talented time) must be taken into account
I understand that you're trying to draw a comparison to the logic behind drug patents, but when you're dealing with a good for which the redistribution and production of all units beyond the first has zero opportunity cost, artificially imposing (by fiat) a cost on the redistribution and production is neither feasible nor efficient[1]
[1] In the economic sense of the word, not the ways it's often used colloquially.