> the concept that PP may be trying to get across is scarcity:

It's pretty mysterious that you think you need to introduce this to the conversation at this point given how prominently scarcity dynamics figure into the comment you're replying to.

> Physical books are intrinsically scarce

Once their production was industrialized with printing press tech, copies of books weren't scarce, they were actually revolutionarily cheap.

The copyright bargain isn't borne out of ignorance of how changes in that direction affect the overall dynamic, it's borne out of deep understanding of what remains scarce and risky and difficult to compensate for when the marginal cost of producing copies drops drastically, and what kind of claims might help.

I was actually replying to both of you, but perhaps I should have said that the "finite" concept PP was trying to get across actually seems to be scarcity - land is scarce, paper books less so - and intangible goods such as ebooks are not scarce.

PP seemed to be talking about the infinite copying/distribution of intangible goods such as ideas or digital media, while you seemed to be misinterpreting that as infinite authorship.

Authorship may be scarce - costly and resource intensive (LLMs notwithstanding) as you describe, while copying and distribution is neither costly nor resource intensive and therefore not scarce, as I believe PP was trying to say.

Indeed, the constitutional copyright bargain describes a limited time monopoly in return for promoting "the progress of science and the useful arts."