Upvoted, because what you said was strictly true and possibly insightful. (Is it still insightful whether the person who coined it actually had the insight that the statement implies?) I'm not really sure what you meant to imply, however, so I hesitated before upvoting.
Actually, I think it would have been more insightful for me to say interpretation isn't free. Dissemination matters, but the interpretation is primary.
Information is inherently free because information is basically numerical, and anyone can (potentially) think of any number. However, information is only useful when the numbers are correlated with actions or objects. It's this correlation that is truly valuable, and the creation of the correlation requires resources (i.e. time and energy).
No, dissemination always consumes resources. I'm not just talking about the resources for sharing files, which are minimal. The real resources consumed are time and energy creating/discovering the information in the first place and putting it in a format that is usable. That's why people need some kind of guaranteed reimbursement for their discoveries and limited IP is a good idea.
