Justin,

I think you are making real progress and, as Dana noted, the phase transitions analogy is a clever and illustrative one. I have only a few brief comments.

I thought the last paragraph of the section on phase transitions and charging was a little bit confusing. I read it twice and got it, but I didn't get it on the first pass.

As I read your essay, it seems it recognizes initially that we would be denying authors something by not letting them impose rent on MC=0 goods, but goes on to conclude that such denials are appropriate given the benefits to society we would realize by removing the barriers that rent imposes on those who cannot pay. I understand your space limitation response to Brett, and so I get why you are focusing more on the "benefits received" side than diving into the "denying author's rent" side. But if the fundamental premise is we should sacrifice some of A's and B's gains (authors' rents on MC=0 goods) to achieve greater gains for Q, R, S, T, and Z (society, and especially those who cannot pay the rents), an extra line somewhere highlighting the trade off directly would help. I can see at least two prime places for it, if you wanted to add such a line. The first is the final line of the piece. A second would be transitioning into the second paragraph of Part III, "The Social Costs of Charging For Distribution."

The essay is looking good. Nice work. I hope these comments are helpful.

-- BrianS - 24 Nov 2009