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Living systems produce copies of information-carrying molecules such as DNAby assembling monomer units into finite-length oligomer (short polymer) copies.We explore the role of initiation and termination of the copy process in thethermodynamics of copying. By splitting the free-energy change of copyformation into informational and chemical terms, we show that copy accuracyplays no direct role in the overall thermodynamics. Instead, it isthermodynamically costly to produce outputs that are more similar to theoligomers in the environment than sequences obtained by randomly samplingmonomers. Copy accuracy can be thermodynamically neutral, or even favoured,depending on the surroundings. Oligomer copying mechanisms can thus function asinformation engines that interconvert chemical and information-based freeenergy. Hard thermodynamic constraints on accuracy derived for infinite-lengthpolymers instead manifest as kinetic barriers experienced while the copy istemplate-attached. These barriers are easily surmounted by shorter oligomers.

Edge-effects dominate copying thermodynamics for finite-length molecular oligomers