Intellectual property is a response exactly to the difference in the marginal cost because it recognises the threat to the value creating producer. Just because

Intellectual property is a response exactly to the difference in the marginal cost because it recognises the threat to the value creating producer. Just because you don't tangibly see the cost of the IP, that doesn't mean it was free to produce. You can absolutely argue that IP law is cynically applied, but in principle it protects high capital and low operating expense businesses from those who would like to do the low operating expense part without bothering about the high capital part.