Earlier schools of economic thought proposed a third type of free good: resources that are so abundant in nature that there is enough for everyone to have as much as they want. Examples in textbooks included fresh water and the air that we breathe. However, these are now regarded as common goods because competition for them is rivalrous.
Copyrights and patents have the effect of converting some goods to scarce goods by law. Although these goods are free goods (in the economic sense) once they have been produced, they do require scarce resources, such as skilled labour, to create them in the first place. Thus these laws are sometimes used to give exclusive rights to the creators of such "intellectual property" in order to encourage resources to be appropriately allocated to these activities.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_good>
So would a single word be considered a free good?
Copyrights and patents have the effect of converting some goods to scarce goods by law. Although these goods are free goods (in the economic sense) once they have been produced, they do require scarce resources, such as skilled labour, to create them in the first place. Thus these laws are sometimes used to give exclusive rights to the creators of such "intellectual property" in order to encourage resources to be appropriately allocated to these activities.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_good>
So would a single word be considered a free good?