平衡---
Balances

So here's the picture: You're standing at the side of the road. Your car is on fire. You are angry and upset because in part you helped start the fire. Now you don't know how to put it out. Next to you is a bucket, filled with gasoline. Obviously, gasoline won't put the fire out.

当前的场景就是：你站在路边，汽车着火了。你又怒又怕，因为你也是火灾的始作俑者之一，现在却不知该如何灭火。旁边又一个装满了汽油的桶，但显然汽油无法灭火。
As you ponder the mess, someone else comes along. In a panic, she grabs the bucket. Before you have a chance to tell her to stop—or before she understands just why she should stop—the bucket is in the air. The gasoline is about to hit the blazing car. And the fire that gasoline will ignite is about to ignite everything around.

你正束手无策，有人过来帮忙，情急之下抓起了桶。你还没来得及制止她——或她还没明白为什么要停手——桶已扬在半空，汽油眼看就要浇向冒着大火的汽车。一旦这些汽油浇下去，周围的所有都难以幸免。

A war about copyright rages all around—and we're all focusing on the wrong thing. No doubt, current technologies threaten existing businesses. No doubt they may threaten artists. But technologies change. The industry and technologists have plenty of ways to use technology to protect themselves against the current threats of the Internet. This is a fire that if let alone would burn itself out.

一场关于版权的战争激怒了所有的人——但我们都关注了错误的东西。毫无疑问，目前的技术的确威胁到了生意人，也威胁了艺术家。但技术是会改变的。工业和技术可以通过各种方法来保护自己，不至受到因特网的威胁。如果听之任之，这场大火自己会燃尽。

Yet policy makers are not willing to leave this fire to itself. Primed with plenty of lobbyists' money, they are keen to intervene to eliminate the problem they perceive. But the problem they perceive is not the real threat this culture faces. For while we watch this small fire in the corner, there is a massive change in the way culture is made that is happening all around.

而决策者不想束手不管。他们手里拿着说客们大把的钱，热心进行干预，想解决这些预见到的问题。但他们预见到的问题并不是这种文化真正面临的威胁。当我们关注这场街角的小小火灾的同时，文化的创造方式正在经历着一场巨变。

Somehow we have to find a way to turn attention to this more important and fundamental issue. Somehow we have to find a way to avoid pouring gasoline onto this fire.
我们必须转而关注这个更基本更重要的问题。我们必须找到制止火上浇油的方法。

We have not found that way yet. Instead, we seem trapped in a simpler, binary view. However much many people push to frame this debate more broadly, it is the simple, binary view that remains. We rubberneck to look at the fire when we should be keeping our eyes on the road.

方法还未找到，我们反而陷入了一种更简单的二元论调。不管有多少人努力来更的看待这场争论，此种简单的二元论调依然存在。当我们应该关注眼前的广阔大道的时候，我们却盯着这场火灾。

This challenge has been my life these last few years. It has also been my failure. In the two chapters that follow, I describe one small brace of efforts, so far failed, to find a way to refocus this debate. We must understand these failures if we're to understand what success will require.
这是最近几年一直困扰我的问题。也是我的失败之处。在接下来的两章，我会描述一种重新寻找问题症结的尝试，虽然目前仍是失败的。如果我们想理解成功的法门，理解这些失败的努力是必须的。

艾尔缀德---(1)
In 1995, a father was frustrated that his daughters didn't seem to like Hawthorne. No doubt there was more than one such father, but at least one did something about it. Eric Eldred, a retired computer programmer living in New Hampshire, decided to put Hawthorne on the Web. An electronic version, Eldred thought, with links to pictures and explanatory text, would make this nineteenth-century author's work come alive.
1995年，一位父亲因为他的女儿们对霍桑不感兴趣而伤脑筋。毫无疑问遇到这样问题的父亲不只一位，但至少这一位行动了起来。艾里克-艾尔缀德，住在新罕布郡的一位退休电脑程序员，决定把霍桑搬上英特网。艾尔缀德心想，一个有图片和解读链接的电子版本，有链接到图片和解释性文字的电子版本，会让这位十九世纪大师的杰作生动起来。

It didn't work—at least for his daughters. They didn't find Hawthorne any more interesting than before. But Eldred's experiment gave birth to a hobby, and his hobby begat a cause: Eldred would build a library of public domain works by scanning these works and making them available for free.
结果这没有成功--至少对他的女儿们来说没有作用。他她们并不认为霍桑比以前更有意思。可是艾尔缀德因这个试验尝试引发有了一个兴趣 业余爱好，而他的兴趣这爱好产生了催生了一个目标一项事业：艾尔缀德要建立一个图书馆，将属于共享公有领域的图书扫描存档并且让人们免费得到免费发行。

Eldred's library was not simply a copy of certain public domain works, though even a copy would have been of great value to people across the world who can't get access to printed versions of these works. Instead, Eldred was producing derivative works from these public domain works. Just as Disney turned Grimm into stories more accessible to the twentieth century, Eldred transformed Hawthorne, and many others, into a form more accessible—technically accessible—today.
艾尔缀德的图书馆不仅 不是简单地收藏 一册 某些公有领域图书的副本，尽管 对于世界上那些找不到这些书印刷版的人们 ，即使一册副本也是很有价值的。相反，艾尔缀德在制作这些共有领域图书的衍生物 作品。正如迪斯尼将格林童话翻制 变成让二十世纪的人更容易接近 更易懂的故事，艾尔缀德将霍桑和其他很多作家的作品，翻制 变成一种我们今天 更容易接近——技术上更容易接近——的形式。当今的技术上更易用的形式。

Eldred's freedom to do this with Hawthorne's work grew from the same source as Disney's. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter had passed into the public domain in 1907. It was free for anyone to take without the permission of the Hawthorne estate or anyone else. Some, such as Dover Press and Penguin Classics, take works from the public domain and produce printed editions, which they sell in bookstores across the country. Others, such as Disney, take these stories and turn them into animated cartoons, sometimes successfully (Cinderella), sometimes not (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Treasure Planet). These are all commercial publications of public domain works.
艾尔缀德翻制 改写[这里应该谈的是derivated works] 霍桑作品的自由，与迪斯尼的自由源于同一处。霍桑的《红字》在1907年转入 进入了公有领域。任何人都能自由地取用，无须霍桑的产业继承人或任何别的人许可。有的人，比如DOVER书局和企鹅古典书库，从共享领域取用作品印制成册，再向全国书店发行 销售。其它他人，好比迪斯尼，翻版这些作品的故事情节，制作 取用这些故事变将它们变成动画片，有时能成功（灰姑娘），有时失败却不能（巴黎圣母院，珍宝星球）。这些都是共有领域作品商业化发行的例子。

The Internet created the possibility of noncommercial publications of public domain works. Eldred's is just one example. There are literally thousands of others. Hundreds of thousands from across the world have discovered this platform of expression and now use it to share works that are, by law, free for the taking. This has produced what we might call the “noncommercial publishing industry,” which before the Internet was limited to people with large egos or with political or social causes. But with the Internet, it includes a wide range of individuals and groups dedicated to spreading culture generally.1
英特网开创了共享领域作品非商业化发行的可能性。艾尔缀德仅仅是一个例子。除他之外还有数以千计的人。散步全世界的数十万人已经发现这个新的言论平台并用 来分享可以依法自由取用的作品。这形成了我们可称为‘非商业化出版业’的行业，而在英特网出现之前，只有那些自我膨胀的人或有政治及社会目标的人从事这类 活动。但有了英特网之后，一个广泛范围内的致力于传播文化的个人和团体也可以从事非商业化出版。

As I said, Eldred lives in New Hampshire. In 1998, Robert Frost's collection of poems New Hampshire was slated to pass into the public domain. Eldred wanted to post that collection in his free public library. But Congress got in the way. As I described in chapter 10, in 1998, for the eleventh time in forty years, Congress extended the terms of existing copyrights—this time by twenty years. Eldred would not be free to add any works more recent than 1923 to his collection until 2019. Indeed, no copyrighted work would pass into the public domain until that year (and not even then, if Congress extends the term again). By contrast, in the same period, more than 1 million patents will pass into the public domain.
如我所言，艾尔缀德住在新罕布郡。1998年，罗伯特-弗罗斯特的诗集《新罕布郡》即将流入共享领域。艾尔缀德想把诗集放入他的免费图书馆。但是美国国会 从中作梗。如我在第十章描述过的，1998年，国会延长了既有版权的时限，这次延期是二十年。艾尔缀德在2019年之前不能将任何1923年之后出版的著 作收入他的图书馆。实际上，不到2019年，受版权保护的作品都不能流入共享领域（如果国会再次延长保护时限，即使到了2019年，也是如此）。相比之 下，同样时间之内，将有一百多万专利会流入共享领域。

This was the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), enacted in memory of the congressman and former musician Sonny Bono, who, his widow, Mary Bono, says, believed that “copy- rights should be forever.” 2
此处提到的便是“桑尼-博诺版权时效延期法案(CTEA)”，其命名是为了纪念已故的国会议员兼歌手桑尼-博诺。桑尼的遗孀，玛丽-博诺称，桑尼认为“版权应该是永久性的”。

Eldred decided to fight this law. He first resolved to fight it through civil disobedience. In a series of interviews, Eldred announced that he would publish as planned, CTEA notwithstanding. But because of a second law passed in 1998, the NET (No Electronic Theft) Act, his act of publishing would make Eldred a felon—whether or not anyone complained. This was a dangerous strategy for a disabled programmer to undertake.
艾尔缀德决定挑战这条法案。他首先采取非暴力反抗。在一系列访谈中，艾尔缀德宣布他将按计划出版图书，无论CTEA怎么说。可是由于1998年中颁布的另 一条法案--“禁止电子偷盗法案（NET）”， 艾尔缀德出版图书的行为将符合“重罪犯”的定义，即便无人投诉。对一个身患残疾的程序员，这无疑是一个危险的策略。

It was here that I became involved in Eldred's battle. I was a constitutional scholar whose first passion was constitutional interpretation. And though constitutional law courses never focus upon the Progress Clause of the Constitution, it had always struck me as importantly different. As you know, the Constitution says,
事情演变至此，我介入了艾尔缀德的斗争。我是一个宪法学者，对宪法进行解读是我的第一爱好。尽管宪法课程从来不精读宪法的进步条款，我一直认为此条款至关重要，不同寻常。如你所知，宪法中提到：

Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science . . . by securing for limited Times to Authors . . . exclusive Right to their . . . Writings. . . .
国会有权促进科学的进步...在有限时间内保护原作者...对其作品...的专有权利...。

As I've described, this clause is unique within the power-granting clause of Article I, section 8 of our Constitution. Every other clause granting power to Congress simply says Congress has the power to do something—for example, to regulate “commerce among the several states" or “declare War.” But here, the “something” is something quite specific—to “promote ...Progress”—through means that are also specific— by “securing” “exclusive Rights” (i.e., copyrights) “for limited Times.”
如我所述，在宪法第一条第八款的授与权力的条款中，这一分句不同寻常。其它每一条授权力与国会的条款都只规定国会有权做什么--例如，制定法规规范“州与 州之间的贸易”或“宣战”。但在此处，国会有权做的“什么”有非常具体的规定--“促进...进步”，国会可用的方式也有具体的规定--“在有限时间内” “保护”“专有权利”（例如，版权）。

In the past forty years, Congress has gotten into the practice of extending existing terms of copyright protection. What puzzled me about this was, if Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then the Constitution's requirement that terms be “limited” will have no practical effect. If every time a copyright is about to expire, Congress has the power to extend its term, then Congress can achieve what the Constitution plainly forbids—perpetual terms “on the installment plan,” as Professor Peter Jaszi so nicely put it.
过去四十年中，国会经常延长现有版权保护期的年限。令我不解的是，如果国会有权延长现有期限，那宪法所要求的“有限”保护期便成了空话。如果每次版权将要 作废的时候，国会都有权延长期限，那么国会就实现了永久性期限的“分期付款”（彼德-简西教授如此贴切的用词），这恰恰是宪法明文禁止的。

As an academic, my first response was to hit the books. I remember sitting late at the office, scouring on-line databases for any serious consideration of the question. No one had ever challenged Congress's practice of extending existing terms. That failure may in part be why Congress seemed so untroubled in its habit. That, and the fact that the practice had become so lucrative for Congress. Congress knows that copyright owners will be willing to pay a great deal of money to see their copyright terms extended. And so Congress is quite happy to keep this gravy train going.
作为学界中人，我的第一反应是翻书。记得一次在办公室很晚了，在网上数据库查找任何有关这个问题的认真考虑。迄今为止，尚未有人对国会延续版权期限的做法 提出异议。这种听之任之，或许成了国会如此肆意妄为的缘由。并且，国会从中牟利已成既定事实。国会深知版权所有人愿意付相当可观的代价来延长版权有效期的 时限。因此国会也乐于不断从中大捞一把。

For this is the core of the corruption in our present system of government.”Corruption” not in the sense that representatives are bribed. Rather, “corruption” in the sense that the system induces the beneficiaries of Congress's acts to raise and give money to Congress to induce it to act. There's only so much time; there's only so much Congress can do. Why not limit its actions to those things it must do—and those things that pay? Extending copyright terms pays.
这就是我们现有政治体制中营私舞弊的核心。“营私舞弊”不是说国会议员有收受贿赂。确切地说，这样的“营私舞弊”是现有体制诱使国会议案的得益人募集并捐 赠金钱给国会让其提出相应议案。时间是有限的，国会所能做的事也是有限的。何不专做那些必须做的并有钱赚的事呢？延续版权有效期就是有赚头的事。

If that's not obvious to you, consider the following: Say you're one of the very few lucky copyright owners whose copyright continues to make money one hundred years after it was created. The Estate of Robert Frost is a good example. Frost died in 1963. His poetry continues to be extraordinarily valuable. Thus the Robert Frost estate benefits greatly from any extension of copyright, since no publisher would pay the estate any money if the poems Frost wrote could be published by anyone for free.
如果对你来说这还不显而易见，如下来设想：假定你是少数几个幸运的版权所有人之一，你的版权在作品创作之后一百年仍旧赚钱。罗伯特-弗罗斯特家族产业便是 一个例证。弗罗斯特死于1963年。他的诗集仍然很有价值。他的家族产业由此能得益于任何版权有效期的延续，因为如果弗罗斯特的诗歌能被任何人免费出版的 话，没有出版商会给他的家族产业支付版税。

So imagine the Robert Frost estate is earning $100,000 a year from three of Frost's poems. And imagine the copyright for those poems is about to expire. You sit on the board of the Robert Frost estate. Your financial adviser comes to your board meeting with a very grim report:
那么假设弗罗斯特家族产业每年从弗罗斯特的三首诗获利十万美元。再假设这几首诗的版权即将过期。你身为弗罗斯特家族产业董事会的成员。你们的财务顾问给董事会带来一份不乐观的报告。

“Next year,” the adviser announces, “our copyrights in works A, B, and C will expire. That means that after next year, we will no longer be receiving the annual royalty check of $100,000 from the publishers of those works.
财务顾问宣布，“明年，我们对A，B，C作品的版权将到期。这意味着明年以后，我们再不能每年从出版商那里拿到十万美元的版税。”

“There's a proposal in Congress, however,” she continues, “that could change this. A few congressmen are floating a bill to extend the terms of copyright by twenty years. That bill would be extraordinarily valuable to us. So we should hope this bill passes.”
“不过，国会有个议案，”她接着说，“可以改变这种情况。几个国会议员在传阅一份议案，将版权的有效期延长二十年。这份议案对我们至关重要。因此我们应该希望它通过。”

“Hope?” a fellow board member says. “Can't we be doing something about it?”
“Well, obviously, yes,” the adviser responds. “We could contribute to the campaigns of a number of representatives to try to assure that they support the bill.”
“希望而已？”董事会一位董事说道，“难道不能为其通过做点什么？”
“哦，当然可以啦，”财务顾问回答说，“我们可以捐款给那些国会议员的竞选基金，保证他们支持这个议案。”

You hate politics. You hate contributing to campaigns. So you want to know whether this disgusting practice is worth it. “How much would we get if this extension were passed?” you ask the adviser. “How much is it worth?”
你厌恶政治。你厌恶给竞选活动捐款。于是你想知道这种讨厌的作法是否值得。“如果延期成功，我们可以赚多少？”你问财务顾问。“倒底值多少钱？”

“Well,” the adviser says, “if you're confident that you will continue to get at least $100,000 a year from these copyrights, and you use the 'discount rate' that we use to evaluate estate investments (6 percent), then this law would be worth $1,146,000 to the estate.”
“嗯，”财务顾问说，“如果你肯定你能继续每年从这些版权获得十万美元，用我们评估投资效益的‘折扣率’（百分之六）来折算，这个议案对我们家族产业来说值一百一十六万美元。”

You're a bit shocked by the number, but you quickly come to the correct conclusion:
“So you're saying it would be worth it for us to pay more than $1,000,000 in campaign contributions if we were confident those contributions would assure that the bill was passed?”
你有点吃惊，但很快就得出正确的结论：
“你是说只要我们能肯定捐款能保证议案通过，我们给竞选团捐助一百多万美元都划算？”

“Absolutely,” the adviser responds. “It is worth it to you to contribute up to the 'present value' of the income you expect from these copyrights. Which for us means over $1,000,000.”
“绝对啦，”顾问回答说，“只要捐款金额在未来版权总收入的‘现值’以内，都划算。对我们来说，的确值一百多万美元。”

You quickly get the point—you as the member of the board and, I trust, you the reader. Each time copyrights are about to expire, every beneficiary in the position of the Robert Frost estate faces the same choice: If they can contribute to get a law passed to extend copyrights, they will benefit greatly from that extension. And so each time copyrights are about to expire, there is a massive amount of lobbying to get the copyright term extended.
你很快就通了窍--作为董事会成员的你，和（我相信）作为读者的你。每次版权将要过期，每个象罗伯特-弗洛斯特产业那样的版权受益人都面临同样的选择：如 果能捐款通过一条法案延长版权期限，他们会受益匪浅。于是每次版权将要过期的时候，都会有大规模的游说活动争取延长版权的期限。

Thus a congressional perpetual motion machine: So long as legislation can be bought (albeit indirectly), there will be all the incentive in the world to buy further extensions of copyright.
这就是国会永动机：只要法案可以用钱买（哪怕是间接地），就少不了用钱来买版权延期的动力。

In the lobbying that led to the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, this “theory” about incentives was proved real. Ten of the thirteen original sponsors of the act in the House received the maximum contribution from Disney's political action committee; in the Senate, eight of the twelve sponsors received contributions.3 The RIAA and the MPAA are estimated to have spent over $1.5 million lobbying in the 1998 election cycle. They paid out more than $200,000 in campaign contributions.4 Disney is estimated
to have contributed more than $800,000 to reelection campaigns in the 1998 cycle.5
在使得Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act通过的游说中，这个关于动力的“理论”被证明是真实的。十三个最初的赞助方的十个收到了从Disney的政治行动委员会的最大额献金。在参议会，十 二个中的八个接受了献金。据估计，RIAA和MPAA在1998年选举期的游说中花费了超过150万。他们在选举中支付了超过20万。Disney在 1998重选年中据估计捐献了超过80万。

艾尔缀德ii---(0)
The day Eldred was decided, fate would have it that I was to travel to Washington, D.C. (The day the rehearing petition in Eldred was denied—meaning the case was really finally over—fate would have it that I was giving a speech to technologists at Disney World.) This was a particularly long flight to my least favorite city. The drive into the city from Dulles was delayed because of traffic, so I opened up my computer and wrote an op-ed piece.
艾尔缀德被判决的那一天，我怀着听天由命的心情踏上前往华盛顿的路途。这是我们关于艾尔缀德的复诉被拒绝的一天，这意味着整个案子被划上了一个句号。正如 我在对迪斯尼技术工作者做演讲时说的一样：一切由命运决定。在飞往我最不喜欢的城市途中，时间似乎过得特别慢。因为交通缘故，这架从Dulles起飞的飞 机晚点了，于是我打开我的电脑，开始写我的文章（？op-ed a page of special features usually opposite the editorial page of a newspaper, short for opposite editorial)。

It was an act of contrition. During the whole of the flight from San Francisco to Washington, I had heard over and over again in my head the same advice from Don Ayer: You need to make them see why it is important. And alternating with that command was the question of Justice Kennedy: “For all these years the act has impeded progress in science and the useful arts. I just don't see any empirical evidence for that.” And so, having failed in the argument of constitutional principle, finally, I turned to an argument of politics.
在从旧金山开往华盛顿的飞机上，我深深地忏悔，我的脑海中一次又一次地浮现Don Ayer给我的建议：“你需要让他们知道事情的重要性。”与之相反是来自Justice Kennedy的疑问：“这么多年来这种行为妨碍了科学和实用艺术的进步。我几乎没看到关于该行为正确的任何经验性的证据。（我几乎没看到关于该法妨碍科 学和实用艺术进步的任何经验性的证据）”对宪法原则致疑失败之后，我开始对政治产生疑问（？）。

The New York Times published the piece. In it, I proposed a simple fix: Fifty years after a work has been published, the copyright owner would be required to register the work and pay a small fee. If he paid the fee, he got the benefit of the full term of copyright. If he did not, the work passed into the public domain.
《纽约时报》发表了这篇文章。我在文章中提出了一个简单的论点：当一项作品发表五年之后，版权所有者将被要求对该作品进行注册并支付一小笔费用。如果他支付这笔钱，他将获得永久著作权。如果他放弃，该作品则流入公共领域。

We called this the Eldred Act, but that was just to give it a name. Eric Eldred was kind enough to let his name be used once again, but as he said early on, it won't get passed unless it has another name.
我们将此称之为艾尔缀德提案，但这仅仅是我们一相情愿地起的一个名字。艾尔缀德非常慷慨地让他的名字再次被使用，但如同他早先所说:该提案不会被通过，除非它有另外一个名字。

Or another two names. For depending upon your perspective, this is either the “Public Domain Enhancement Act” or the “Copyright Term Deregulation Act.” Either way, the essence of the idea is clear and obvious: Remove copyright where it is doing nothing except blocking access and the spread of knowledge. Leave it for as long as Congress allows for those works where its worth is at least $1. But for everything else, let the content go.
或者其他什么名字，基于大家的观点，比如是“公共领域提升法案”或“版权期限松管法案。”无论如何，该观点的核心内容是显而易见的：凡是阻碍知识的获取和传播的版权应该被取消，除了那些国会认为至少有一美元价值的作品，其他一切作品都应该自由流通。

The reaction to this idea was amazingly strong. Steve Forbes endorsed it in an editorial. I received an avalanche of e-mail and letters expressing support. When you focus the issue on lost creativity, people can see the copyright system makes no sense. As a good Republican might say, here government regulation is simply getting in the way of innovation and creativity. And as a good Democrat might say, here the government is blocking access and the spread of knowledge for no good reason. Indeed, there is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans on this issue. Anyone can recognize the stupid harm of the present system.
大家对此观点的反应非常强烈。Steve Forbes在一篇社论中对其表示称赞。我则收到雪崩般的表示支持的电子邮件和信函。当你把焦点集中在流失的创造力上时，人们可以发现版权体制没有任何意 义。一个优秀的出版人(共和党人）可能会说：政府条例是致力于革新和创造力的。而一个优秀的民主党人可能会说：政府正在无理阻碍知识获取和传播。实际上， 对于此问题，民主党人和出版人（共和党人）的观点并无不同。任何人都能发现现行体制的愚蠢危害。

Indeed, many recognized the obvious benefit of the registration requirement. For one of the hardest things about the current system for people who want to license content is that there is no obvious place to look for the current copyright owners. Since registration is not required, since marking content is not required, since no formality at all is required, it is often impossibly hard to locate copyright owners to ask permission to use or license their work. This system would lower these costs, by establishing at least one registry where copyright owners could be identified.
事实上，很多人都意识到法令要求的明显利益所在。在现行体制下，即使获得版权，想标记自己作品内容也是很难的一件事，因为规则不需要这么做，标记作品内 容完全没有必要，根本无须正式的规定。同样，版权所有者要想要求对自己作品的使用和许可的应允权也极端困难。该体制通过建立至少一个版权所有者可被识别的 注册，就是为了减少费用的支出，

As I described in chapter 10, formalities in copyright law were removed in 1976, when Congress followed the Europeans by abandoning any formal requirement before a copyright is granted.1 The Europeans are said to view copyright as a “natural right.” Natural rights don't need forms to exist. Traditions, like the Anglo-American tradition that required copyright owners to follow form if their rights were to be protected, did not, the Europeans thought, properly respect the dignity of the author. My right as a creator turns on my creativity, not upon the special favor of the government.
正如我在第十章里描述的一样，1976年版权法中的正式手续被取消，当时国会正效仿欧洲人，在一项版权被许可之前，取缔任何正式的要求。欧洲人被称之为将 版权看作“自然权利”的人，自然权利不需要条条框框的限制。传统上，如Anglo-American的传统，如果版权所有者的权利被保护，他们则要遵守相 应的制度。与之相反，欧洲人认为应该绝对尊重作者的权威。我的权利正如一个创造者所依赖的创造力一样（身为一名创作者我的权利依赖于我的创造力），并非基 于政府的特别偏好（favor:a kind act that is not forced or necessary 恩惠）。

That's great rhetoric. It sounds wonderfully romantic. But it is absurd copyright policy. It is absurd especially for authors, because a world without formalities harms the creator. The ability to spread “Walt Disney creativity” is destroyed when there is no simple way to know what's protected and what's not.
这绝对是浮夸之词。听上去似乎非常美妙，但这是荒谬的版权政策，尤其是对作者而言。因为一个没有规则的版权世界必然损害创作人的利益。当我们没办法知道是非对错时，“沃尔特.迪斯尼创造力”的传播力将被摧毁。

The fight against formalities achieved its first real victory in Berlin in 1908. International copyright lawyers amended the Berne Convention in 1908, to require copyright terms of life plus fifty years, as well as the abolition of copyright formalities. The formalities were hated because the stories of inadvertent loss were increasingly common. It was as if a Charles Dickens character ran all copyright offices, and the failure to dot an i or cross a t resulted in the loss of widows' only income.
1908年反对规则的斗争在柏林取得了第一次真正的胜利。同年，国际版权律师修正了《柏林公约》，在原有基础上对版权期限增加50年，这也意味着版权正式 手续的废除。正式手续之所以被人憎恶是因为故事不经意流失的(???)现象越来越普遍。这好似小说中的Charles Dickens(就好象查尔斯·狄更斯小说中的人物） 操纵所有的版权职务（？？？），但终于一无所有，以失败告终。

These complaints were real and sensible. And the strictness of the formalities, especially in the United States, was absurd. The law should always have ways of forgiving innocent mistakes. There is no reason copyright law couldn't, as well. Rather than abandoning formalities totally, the response in Berlin should have been to embrace a more equitable system of registration.
这些抱怨是真实而明知(智）的。在美国，正式规则的严格程度尤其荒谬。法律应该始终对幼稚的错误进行更正，没理由版权法不这么做。柏林的责任应该是去建立一个更公正的注册体制而不是将规则完全废除。（对柏林的回应应去是创建一个更公正的注册体制而不是将其完全废除)。
Even that would have been resisted, however, because registration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was still expensive. It was also a hassle. The abolishment of formalities promised not only to save the starving widows, but also to lighten an unnecessary regulatory burden imposed upon creators.
然后，这可能遭受抵制，因为在19世纪和20世纪注册的费用依然很昂贵。这同样是一个激烈的争论。规则的废除应允{promise:to cause one to expect or hope for (something)} 不仅要拯救快饿死的寡妇，同时要减轻强加在创作人身上无必要的制度束缚。

In addition to the practical complaint of authors in 1908, there was a moral claim as well. There was no reason that creative property should be a second-class form of property. If a carpenter builds a table, his rights over the table don't depend upon filing a form with the government. He has a property right over the table “naturally,” and he can assert that right against anyone who would steal the table, whether or not he has informed the government of his ownership of the table.
1908年，为了进一步解决作者的不满，又出现了一个道德声明。没有理由说创作所有权是所有权的第二种形式。如果一个木匠造了一张桌子，他在桌子上的权利 并非基于和政府签署的一个表格。他自然拥有桌子的所有权，同时他具有维护他的桌子被任何人偷窃的权利，无论他是否告知政府他拥有这张桌子。

This argument is correct, but its implications are misleading. For the argument in favor of formalities does not depend upon creative property being second-class property. The argument in favor of formalities turns upon the special problems that creative property presents. The law of formalities responds to the special physics of creative property, to assure that it can be efficiently and fairly spread.
这个争论是正确的，但它存在误导。那些支持运用规则的人并不是基于创作所有权是第二种形式。他们只是针对那些创作所有权表现的特别问题。关于规则的法律对这些特殊问题作出响应，以确保创作有效公平地传播。

No one thinks, for example, that land is second-class property just because you have to register a deed with a court if your sale of land is to be effective. And few would think a car is second-class property just because you must register the car with the state and tag it with a license. In both of those cases, everyone sees that there is an important reason to secure registration—both because it makes the markets more efficient and because it better secures the rights of the owner. Without a registration system for land, landowners would perpetually have to guard their property. With registration, they can simply point the police to a deed. Without a registration system for cars, auto theft would be much easier. With a registration system, the thief has a high burden to sell a stolen car. A slight burden is placed on the property owner, but those burdens produce a much better system of protection for property generally.
举个例子，没人会因为你合法卖了一块地而不得不向法院登记该行为而认为土地是第二层次地所有权；也没人会因为你必须给小轿车上牌照而认为一辆小轿车是第二 层次所有权。在这两个例子中，任何人都可看见安全注册地一个重要原因——它使市场更有效地运转并能更好地保护所有者地权利。如果没有土地注册制度，土地所 有者将不得不永远依靠个人能力捍卫他们的财产。有了注册登记，他们只用便利地向警察求助。如果轿车没有注册，偷车贼会更容易下手，有了注册制度，小偷行窃 则会有所顾忌。财产所有者也会有小小地压力，但通常这些压力有利于促进为更好地保护所有权的制度的建立。

It is similarly special physics that makes formalities important in copyright law. Unlike a carpenter's table, there's nothing in nature that makes it relatively obvious who might own a particular bit of creative property. A recording of Lyle Lovett's latest album can exist in a billion places without anything necessarily linking it back to a particular owner. And like a car, there's no way to buy and sell creative property with confidence unless there is some simple way to authenticate who is the author and what rights he has. Simple transactions are destroyed in a world without formalities. Complex, expensive, lawyer transactions take their place.
类似的道理使得规则在版权法里变得重要。与木匠的桌子不同，没有任何(in nature?)能够相对明显地指出谁拥有某个创作版权。一个Lyle Lovett的最新的歌集能够存在于一百亿的地方而没有任何东西必要地指向某个所有人。就像一辆车，除非有简单地办法确定作者是谁和他拥有什么样的版权， 那就没有信心购买和销售创作版权。简单的交易在没有规则的世界被摧毁了。复杂的，昂贵的，需要律师的交易取而代之。

This was the understanding of the problem with the Sonny Bono Act that we tried to demonstrate to the Court. This was the part it didn't “get.” Because we live in a system without formalities, there is no way easily to build upon or use culture from our past. If copyright terms were, as Justice Story said they would be, “short,” then this wouldn't matter much. For fourteen years, under the framers' system, a work would be presumptively controlled. After fourteen years, it would be presumptively uncontrolled.
这就是我们试图向法庭呈现的对Sonny Bono Act的问题的理解。这就是未被“接受”(get?)的部分。因为我们身处于一个没有规则的系统里，没有办法能够容易地建立或使用我们过去的文化。如果如 Story法官所说的copyright terms将会是“短的”，那么这也不是那么重要。在建立者的系统下，一件作品十四年里将顺理成章是被控制的。十四年后，它将被

But now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious burden on the creative process. If the only way a library can offer an Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity in a way that has never been seen before because there are no formalities.
但现在版权可以是一个世纪那么长，没有能力知道什么是被保护的和什么不是被保护的成了创作过程中巨大和明显的负担。如果一个图书馆关于New Deal的互联网展览的唯一办法是雇佣一个律师去清理(clear?)每一张图片和每一段音乐的版权，那么版权系统就是在某种意义上给创作以前所未有的负 担，原因就是没有规则。

The Eldred Act was designed to respond to exactly this problem. If it is worth $1 to you, then register your work and you can get the longer term. Others will know how to contact you and, therefore, how to get your permission if they want to use your work. And you will get the benefit of an extended copyright term.
The Eldred Act正是为了这个问题而设计的。如果值得一美元，那么注册你的作品，并得到更长的期限。其他人将知道如何联系你，如果他们想要使用你的作品的话，并因此能够得到你的许可。而且你将得从延长的版权期中获利。

If it isn't worth it to you to register to get the benefit of an extended term, then it shouldn't be worth it for the government to defend your monopoly over that work either. The work should pass into the public domain where anyone can copy it, or build archives with it, or create a movie based on it. It should become free if it is not worth $1 to you.
如果不值得你去注册而得到延长的版权期，那么也就不值得政府去捍卫你的垄断。这作品就应该进入公众领域，每个人都能够拷贝它，收藏它，或者以它制作一部电影。它应该成为免费的如果对你来说它连一美元都不值得。

Some worry about the burden on authors. Won't the burden of registering the work mean that the $1 is really misleading? Isn't the hassle worth more than $1? Isn't that the real problem with registration?
有人担心这对作者造成的负担。注册作品的负担不意味着那一美元是误导么？那些麻烦难道不多于一美元么？那不正是注册的真实问题么？

It is. The hassle is terrible. The system that exists now is awful. I completely agree that the Copyright Office has done a terrible job (no doubt because they are terribly funded) in enabling simple and cheap registrations. Any real solution to the problem of formalities must address the real problem of governments standing at the core of any system of formalities. In this book, I offer such a solution. That solution essentially remakes the Copyright Office. For now, assume it was Amazon that ran the registration system. Assume it was one-click registration. The Eldred Act would propose a simple, one-click registration fifty years after a work was published. Based upon historical data, that system would move up to 98 percent of commercial work, commercial work that no longer had a commercial life, into the public domain within fifty years. What do you think?
是的。这些麻烦真是糟糕。当前的系统是令人厌恶的。我完全同意版权Office？在使简单和廉价的注册成为可能的工作上及其糟糕（这点毫无疑问，因为他们 的资金来源是糟糕的）。任何对规则的这个问题的真正解决办法必须针对政府处于任何规则系统的核心的问题。在这本书里，我提供了一个方案。这方案核心上重建 了Copyright Office。暂且，假设是Amazon在运行这个注册系统。假设它是one-click注册。The Eldred Act将提议一个简单的，当一件作品发布后50年的one-click注册。基于历史纪录，这个系统将把百分之九十八的商业作品，即不再有任何商业生命的 商业作品，在五十年内放进公共领域。你将怎么看？

When Steve Forbes endorsed the idea, some in Washington began to pay attention. Many people contacted me pointing to representatives who might be willing to introduce the Eldred Act. And I had a few who directly suggested that they might be willing to take the first step.
当Steve Forbes赞同这个注意，在华盛顿的一些人开始对此关注 。许多人联系我指出那些有可能介绍introduce(?)Eldred Act的议会代表。也有一些代表直接提议他们可能原意迈出第一步。

One representative, Zoe Lofgren of California, went so far as to get the bill drafted. The draft solved any problem with international law. It imposed the simplest requirement upon copyright owners possible. In May 2003, it looked as if the bill would be introduced. On May 16, I posted on the Eldred Act blog, “we are close.” There was a general reaction in the blog community that something good might happen here.
一位代表，California的Zoe Lofgren，甚至起草了提案。这份提案解决了关于国际性法律的问题。它向可能的版权所有者提出了一个最简单的要求。在2003年五月，这个提案看起来 将被introduced？在5月16日，我在Eldred Act网志上写了“我们很接近了”。在网志者圈子里，大家都觉得有盼头了。

But at this stage, the lobbyists began to intervene. Jack Valenti and the MPAA general counsel came to the congresswoman's office to give the view of the MPAA. Aided by his lawyer, as Valenti told me, Valenti informed the congresswoman that the MPAA would oppose the Eldred Act. The reasons are embarrassingly thin. More importantly, their thinness shows something clear about what this debate is really about.
但在这一阶段，游说者们开始介入。Jack Valenti和MPAA的(general?)律师团来到参议员的办公室阐述MPAA的观点。Valenti告诉我，在律师的帮助下，他告诉参议员 MPAA将反对The Eldred Act。 理由很不具有说服力。更重要的是，他们这方面的薄弱清晰的表明了这场辩论的实质内容。

The MPAA argued first that Congress had “firmly rejected the central concept in the proposed bill”—that copyrights be renewed. That was true, but irrelevant, as Congress's “firm rejection” had occurred long before the Internet made subsequent uses much more likely. Second, they argued that the proposal would harm poor copyright owners—apparently those who could not afford the $1 fee. Third, they argued that Congress had determined that extending a copyright term would encourage restoration work. Maybe in the case of the small percentage of work covered by copyright law that is still commercially valuable, but again this was irrelevant, as the proposal would not cut off the extended term unless the $1 fee was not paid. Fourth, the MPAA argued that the bill would impose “enormous” costs, since a registration system is not free. True enough, but those costs are certainly less than the costs of clearing the rights for a copyright whose owner is not known. Fifth, they worried about the risks if the copyright to a story underlying a film were to pass into the public domain. But what risk is that? If it is in the public domain, then the film is a valid derivative use.
MPAA声 称议会已“坚决驳回提案的中心内容”即著作权的更新。但与此不相关却真实的是因特网似乎已经在议会“坚决反对”之前开始了对其应用。第二，他们声称此提案 会伤害贫困的著作权拥有者，就是那些不能支付一美元费用的人群。第三，他们声称意会议已经认定著作权的推广将会导致作品的复兴。不排除一小部分受版权保护 的作品依旧拥有商业价值。同样不相关，因为此提案只有在为负一美元的情况下才会删除延伸条款。第四，MPAA声称这个提案将会导致“重大”开支，因为注册系统并不免费。诚然，但是这些开销将远远少于为著作权而提起的诉讼的开支。第五， 他们担心一个有电影拍摄价值的故事会有被传入公众领域的危险。那又是怎样的一个危险呢？如果被传入公众领域，那么电影就是一个有效的在相关应用。

Finally, the MPAA argued that existing law enabled copyright owners to do this if they wanted. But the whole point is that there are thousands of copyright owners who don't even know they have a copyright to give. Whether they are free to give away their copyright or not—a controversial claim in any case—unless they know about a copyright, they're not likely to.
最后，MPAA声称如果版权拥有者愿意，现存的法律赋予他们那样做的权利。 但事实是数以千计的版权拥有者不知道自己拥有版权。对于他们是否愿意给出这种版权是一个具有普遍争议性的问题，不了解关于版权的问题，他们不会有这种倾向。

At the beginning of this book, I told two stories about the law reacting to changes in technology. In the one, common sense prevailed. In the other, common sense was delayed. The difference between the two stories was the power of the opposition—the power of the side that fought to defend the status quo. In both cases, a new technology threatened old interests. But in only one case did those interest's have the power to protect themselves against this new competitive threat.
这本书一开始，我讲述了两个关于法律给技术方面带来变革的故事。其一，常识获胜。另一个，尝试受到阻碍。两则的区别在于相悖的力量，即用以捍卫“status quo”的那一面的力量。另一种情形是，新技术威胁旧有的利益。但是只有一种情形，这些旧有利益可以有能力来保护自己免受新的竞争威胁。

I used these two cases as a way to frame the war that this book has been about. For here, too, a new technology is forcing the law to react. And here, too, we should ask, is the law following or resisting common sense? If common sense supports the law, what explains this common sense?

我用这两种情形来概括本书中讲述的争端。因为这里新技术同样迫使法律发挥作用。同时，我们还要责问，法律是追随还是有悖于我们的常识？如果常识支持法律，用什么来解释常识？

When the issue is piracy, it is right for the law to back the copyright owners. The commercial piracy that I described is wrong and harmful, and the law should work to eliminate it. When the issue is p2p sharing, it is easy to understand why the law backs the owners still: Much of this sharing is wrong, even if much is harmless. When the issue is copyright terms for the Mickey Mouses of the world, it is possible still to understand why the law favors Hollywood: Most people don't recognize the reasons for limiting copyright terms; it is thus still possible to see good faith within the resistance.
如 果出现盗版问题，那么法律应该支持版权拥有者。我所描述商业盗版是错误并有害的法律应该将其制止。当问题事关人们之间的分相时，很容易理解为什么法律依旧 支持拥有者：这种分享是错误的，即使大多数无害。当事关米奇在世界范围内的版权条款问题出现时，同样很容易理解为什么法律会维护好莱坞：大多数人没有认识 到限制版权条款的理由；这样同样可以看出人们对现存事物的美好忠实。

But when the copyright owners oppose a proposal such as the Eldred Act, then, finally, there is an example that lays bare the naked self-interest driving this war. This act would free an extraordinary range of content that is otherwise unused. It wouldn't interfere with any copyright owner's desire to exercise continued control over his content. It would simply liberate what Kevin Kelly calls the “Dark Content” that fills archives around the world. So when the warriors oppose a change like this, we should ask one simple question:
但是如果一个版权拥有者反对诸如“Eldred Act”一类的提议，那么最后，便有一个多此一举的典型来驱动这一征战。那么这一行动就会让一系列内容免于荒废。它不会干涉任何版权拥有者对自己内容继续实施支配的愿望。它将仅仅会解放那些诸如Kevin Kelly所讲的“黑暗内容”他们让世界填满档案文件。所以当一个勇士反对此类变革的时候，我们应该问一个简单的问题：

What does this industry really want?
这一工业到底要想要怎样？

With very little effort, the warriors could protect their content. So the effort to block something like the Eldred Act is not really about protecting their content. The effort to block the Eldred Act is an effort to assure that nothing more passes into the public domain. It is another step to assure that the public domain will never compete, that there will be no use of content that is not commercially controlled, and that there will be no commercial use of content that doesn't require their permission first.
这些勇士将以微小的努力来维护他们的要义。所以用以阻止诸如Eldred Act一类事件的努力并不是事关保护他们的所谓“要义”。这类努力的目的在于证实没让公众知道更多。也是另一个举措来确认，公众将不会竞争，来证明没有非商业控制的应用，用来确认所有的商业应用都要经过“他们”的首肯。

The opposition to the Eldred Act reveals how extreme the other side is. The most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not the protection of “property” but the rejection of a tradition. Their aim is not simply to protect what is theirs. Their aim is to assure that all there is is what is theirs.
对“Eldred Act”的反对暴露出尖锐的另一面。那备受爱戴魅力十足强有力的议员游说者的确实现了它的目的所在，不是保护“产权”而是反对传统。他们的目的不仅仅是保护属于他们的。他们的目的在于确保存在的一切都是他们的。

It is not hard to understand why the warriors take this view. It is not hard to see why it would benefit them if the competition of the public domain tied to the Internet could somehow be quashed. Just as RCA feared the competition of FM, they fear the competition of a public domain connected to a public that now has the means to create with it and to share its own creation.
不难理解为什么这些勇士持此观点。不难知道如果他们和与网络紧密联系的公众利益的竞争因故废止的话，他们是如何获利的。正如RAC 害怕FM的竞争一样，他们担心这种与公众的竞争，这种竞争与大众紧密联系，他们现在拥有用以创作的方式，并且分享这种创作。

What is hard to understand is why the public takes this view. It is as if the law made airplanes trespassers. The MPAA stands with the Causbys and demands that their remote and useless property rights be respected, so that these remote and forgotten copyright holders might block the progress of others.
难于理解的是，为什么大众也持这一看法。就像法律使飞机成为非法入侵者一样。MPAA与Causbys同一立场，要求他们隐藏的没有价值的产权得到保护，这样那些隐匿的被遗忘的版权持有人可以阻止其他人的进步

All this seems to follow easily from this untroubled acceptance of the “property” in intellectual property. Common sense supports it, and so long as it does, the assaults will rain down upon the technologies of the Internet. The consequence will be an increasing “permission society.” The past can be cultivated only if you can identify the owner and gain permission to build upon his work. The future will be controlled by this dead (and often unfindable) hand of the past.
所有这些好像是简单的追随了知识产权中被轻松接受的“产权”。常识支持它，到此为止，攻击还是面对互联网技术。其影响便是助长一个“许可社会”只有你证实了作者并且获得发展其作品的允许，才可以发掘过去的资源。未来掌握在一群已逝（通常无处可寻）者手里。

BALANCES ( 平衡（简体）Tranlsator: piggie; Reviewer: Owen)

Chapter 13: Eldred(艾尔缀德(简体)Tranlsator: Eduxin; Reviewer: Owen)

Chapter 14: Eldred II(艾尔缀德II（简体）Tranlsator: Blythe;翻译中)