You seem to have completely ignored any parts of my comment that didn't directly agree with you, and then attempted to reimpose the analogy that I spent the entire comment systematically rejecting. Specifically, I made the point that the rationale for copying data has nothing to do with its zero cost to copy, and even with a non-zero copying cost the rationale still applies. That rationale depends on the differences between a bag of M&Ms and a piece of music (or other data), which you dismissed as not "addressing the economic question"; you said that you "understand that an M&M is different from an A minor chord voicing", but then you reimposed an analogy that assumes you can treat them identically. I addressed the economic question quite plainly: a copier does not inherently owe anything to the author of the copied data. Anyone currently in possession of a piece of data can let anyone else copy it (on whatever terms they see fit), and the author has no inherent right to get involved in that transaction. They currently have an
artificial right to get involved in that transaction, hence this discussion.
To further abuse analogies for a moment (note that I used "candy" rather than "M&Ms" to avoid confusing the copying analogy with trademark issues): if I open up a stand across the street from the candy vendor and start giving away free bags of candy, I haven't "deprived the vendor of the right to sell their candy at the price they determined". They have no such right; they have the right to try to sell it. (They might even successfully sell a few bags to people who don't want to cross the street.) Fundamentally, I've done nothing wrong and I owe the candy vendor nothing. I certainly don't owe them the cost basis of a bag of candy, and implying otherwise would make no sense. Even if I created those bags of candy by purchasing a bag from the vendor and analyzing it so I could precisely duplicate it, I still owe the vendor nothing beyond the original price I paid for that one bag of candy. Do you see anything particularly wrong with that analogy? (If you'd like to complain that I've suggested giving away something that costs a non-zero amount to produce, consider that people routinely provide free downloads even though they pay for bandwidth.)