"DRM is an attempt to force rivalry and excludability onto information"

And here I thought DRM was trying to make difficult the non-permitted sharing of the results of someone's hard work, for example music an artist created, or books an author wrote, or the years of work a team of actors, cinematographers, move score writers, directors, producers, makeup artists, animators, janitors and all other people that go into making a movie.

The result (the movie) may be easy to reproduce, without these protections, but the artists/etc deserve the money for their trade.

That said, DRM generally gets way the heck too much in the way of everything, and I would much rather a generally honest society where people want to support the artist so that they can continue doing what they love and continue entertaining. I think we live in a society like that in general, and the people that choose not to support the artist's work are just a tragedy of the commons biproduct that we'll never be able to stop -- nor should we try to, because efforts to the contrary just make it harder for paying customers.

But meh. Sorry, my nitpick is with "DRM is an attempt to force [...] onto information." because while technically accurate ('data is just a really big number'!) it's the idea behind the data that gives it worth

> And here I thought DRM was trying to make difficult the non-permitted sharing of the results of someone's hard work, for example music an artist created, or books an author wrote, or the years of work a team of actors, cinematographers, move score writers, directors, producers, makeup artists, animators, janitors and all other people that go into making a movie.

I am willing to believe that's what it originally meant to do, but it has proven wholly ineffective at that goal. If you want a pirated work, you don't interact with a DRM-encumbered disk at all — you just grab it off the Net. The effect of DRM on movie piracy seems to be insanely close to zero.

However, it is much more effective at doing things like forcing honest people to buy multiple copies of a movie to watch in their living room (where they have a Blu-Ray player), in their bedroom (where they have an Apple TV) and in their car (where they have a DVD player).

Couldn't agree more :/

> You can try and use a government fiat to legislate the market to behave a certain way, but at the end of the day, if those are at odds with the fundamental laws of economics and reality (ie, one's ability to copy information "for free"), you're playing a losing game from the start.

How do you quantify "for free"?

If we mean "at no cost to the taker," then it's equal to theft, which is obviously not much of a position to take. I'm guessing this isn't what you mean.

But if we mean "at no cost to the original holder," then that is not really true. There is no marginal cost for copying information, but he has already incurred a potentially very high fixed cost. Excluding that cost from our analysis of the situation leads to a distorted view of economics and reality.

> How do you quantify "for free"? If we mean "at no cost to the taker," then it's equal to theft, which is obviously not much of a position to take. I'm guessing this isn't what you mean.

This usage of the word "theft" only makes sense when dealing with private goods, as I explained in my original post. We're dealing with a good (information) that is entirely nonrival and fairly non-excludable, putting it somewhere on the spectrum between a common good and a public good.

> Excluding that cost from our analysis of the situation leads to a distorted view of economics and reality.

Applying the economics of private goods to goods that are neither rival nor excludable leads to a distorted view of reality as well.

> This usage of the word "theft" only makes sense when dealing with private goods, as I explained in my original post

If I had indeed used the word "theft" to refer to it, that would be a good point. However, I did not. I said that if you're only considering the cost to the recipient, then the same analysis could apply with equal validity to theft.

> Applying the economics of private goods to goods that are neither rival nor excludable leads to a distorted view of reality as well.

Talent is both rival and excludable. That is my point. The marginal cost of transmitting the information is essentially nonexistent, but the cost of producing it in the first place (which depends on a finite supply of talented time) must be taken into account or we'll come to bad, unrealistic decisions.

> 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.