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Copyright and wrongs

Themoderator's opening remarks

May 5th 2009 | Mr Kenneth Cukier

Copyright strangles扼死 creativity. Copyright rewards originality. It is a nuisance讨人厌的东西 to the public that unduly不适当地、过度地enriches a few people.
It is the backbone of our knowledge economy that fuelsprogress. Hate it, love it, break it, protect it; few people lackstrong opinions about copyright and its place in society.

Copyright is just that—the right to make copies. Prior to the printing press there was no such thing. The act ofduplication 复制was so labor-intensive and imperfectthat it was tolerated. After Gutenberg'stechnology made disseminating传播、散布 ideas easier and a better business, the act ofpublishing eventually became a matter of royal privilege (as much to control content as raise income注意as..as..句型用法). Books were expensive andquality was poor.

The introduction of copyright law 300 years ago wasdesigned to liberate literary works by limiting the term期限 of exclusivity beforethey entered the public domain领域（=field） for anyone to reproduce.Copyright was part of the march of capitalism资本主义 anddemocracy against the power of monopolies(monopoly垄断) and monarchies(monarchy君主政治). It freed up knowledge and gave authors rights
over their intellectual labor.

How things change. Today the system is regarded by many as a mechanism结构to unfairly restrict content in order to line the pockets of a few. Copyright's scope, duration and strength haveexpanded, even as new digital technologies have made it easier than ever fornew works to be created. Does copyright still serve the public? Does it do more harm than good?

Our esteemed debaters are perfectly suited to wrestlewith these issues. Supporting the motion is WilliamFisher III, a professor at Harvard Law School and the director of theBerkman Center for Internet and Society. He has long argued that the creep of蔓延copyright extracts a high buthidden cost to the public. Yet more than a trenchant锐利的critic, Professor Fisher puts forward thoughtful solutions, asin the book "Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future ofEntertainment" (Stanford University Press, 2004).

His potent有力的、有效的 perspectives find their worthy adversary 对手inJustin Hughes, a professor of intellectual property at Cardozo Law School,where he leads Cardozo's programme training Chinese officials in intellectualproperty. He helped craft 精巧制作America's copyright policies in the 1990s (and earlierclerked for the Lord President of the Malaysian Supreme Court in Kuala Lumpur).Professor Hughes is an articulate proponent支持者、建议者 oftoday's copyright system, noting that economic incentives are vital if societyis to benefit from high-quality works.

What is certain is that the issues are only becoming morecontentious有异议的. Asincreasing numbers of people feel encumbered填满 by copyright, a subject that has long been the purview范围、视野 ofspecialists has emerged into the sunlight of the public sphere, such as this hallowed debating ground. It is only appropriate, too, since copyright is meant to benefit society. Can our debaters sway影响 TheEconomist's online audience in favour of theirpositions?

The proposer's opening remarks

May 5th 2009 | ProfessorWilliam Fisher

The copyright system has several important functions. It providesincentives for creative activities that otherwise注意不同的意思：以另外的方式、不同的；否则；在其他方面 would not occur and then facilitatespublic dissemination散播、传播 of the fruits of those activities. Itgives creators fair rewards for their efforts. It protects theemotional bonds that many artists feel with their products. Mostbroadly, copyright laws, working in concert with many other laws, help
cultivate a just and stimulating culture. These are all worthy objectives.让步+转折 Unfortunately, the current copyright system does a poor job ofadvancing them.If it is to perform well, and in particular
if it is to adapt to modern information technologies, it must be reformed infundamental respects.

让步：copyrightsystem的重要功能；转折：没能跟随现代科技发展，导致不能运转地很好

What's wrong? Here are a few of the problems:

Copyrightprotection lasts too long. Inmany countries, including the United States, copyright protection for a creative work nowpersists for the life of its author plus 70 years. It was not alwaysso. Under the original American copyright statute, the maximum term was 28years. Over the centuries, it has grown like Topsy.Commentators are nearly unanimous无异议的 in concluding that the current term is much longer than necessary to provideappropriate stimuli for creativity or to protectauthors' legitimate合法的 interests in the sanctity圣洁 of their creations. Just one example: in the Eldredcase, in which the most recent extension of the American copyrightterm was challenged (unsuccessfully) on constitutional grounds, a group of 17economists (including five Nobel prizewinners) submitted a brief arguing that "it is highly unlikely thatthe economic benefits from copyright extension
under [this statute法律法规] outweigh the additional costs". (MiltonFriedman reportedly agreed to join the brief only on the condition that it include the phase "no brainer".)

第一个问题：copyright保护的时间过长，并举例说明，经济是不会从copyright时间的增长获得很多利益的，相比附加的费用而言

Too many creationsare protected. This problem derives primarily from
a seemingly表面上看起来 innocuous无害的 provision of the Berne Convention, a multilateral多国的 treaty条约 to which most countries now adhere遵守. Article 5(2) of the convention大会、习俗、协定 provides that "the enjoyment and the exercise of[copyrights] shall not be subject to
any formality".Prior to the imposition强加 of this rule, many countries required authors whowanted copyright protection for their works to comply with various formal requirements, the most important of whichwas the duty to attach a copyright "notice" (a "©" or somethingequivalent) to copies of those works when they were first published.Works that did not comply with those requirements fell into the public domain.No longer. Now every email message, every blog entry, every snapshot—indeed,every creation that evinces a bare minimum ofcreativity and is fixed in some tangible真实的、可触知的 medium方法、手段—is automatically protected by copyright law, whetherthe author is aware of it or not.

太多作品被保护了

Partly for the same reason, there is no comprehensive national (to saynothing of global) registry, enabling one to ascertain确定、探知 theowners of copyrighted works and the uses that those owners will and will notpermit.

没有一个全面的、全国性的注册

The net effect of these three features is that the copyright system isbadly over-inclusive. Most creative worksproduced since the 1920s either are or might be subject to copyrightprotection. Someone who wishes to put one of those works to productive use(reprint an out-of-print novel, "mashup" a song, include a film clipin a new documentary纪录片) faces serious obstacles: first, in locating the copyright owner, and then inobtaining permission. Most give up without trying. One reason this is troublingis that today more than ever creativity is achieved through the incorporationand modification of pre-existing works. By needlesslylocking up portions of our cultural heritage, we also needlessly curb cultural progress and opportunitiesfor self-expression.

Copyright过于包含花，阻碍了文化的发展以及自我的表达

But over-inclusiveness is not the only problem. In othercontexts, the current copyright system gives creators too little aid. Forinstance, it fails effectively to protect the legitimate interests of thecreators of audio and video recordings. To be sure, the "law on the books" purports意味着 to forbid the unauthorisedreproduction and distribution of those recordings. But in practice实际上, thelegal system has been unable to prevent widespread violations of thoseprohibitions, primarily through peer-to-peer file-sharing. The result is thatsince 1999 the revenues年收入 of the music industry have been falling at an accelerating rate, and the movie industry is now teetering on thebrink of the precipice. The response of the legal system has been toimpose ever more severe penalties惩罚 upon those who contribute to the problem: – lawsuits诉讼against individual file-sharers and organisations that facilitate theirbehaviour; the recent criminal conviction in Sweden of the founders of PirateBay; the "three-strikes-and-you're-out" policy about to be adopted inFrance; andso forth. None of these initiatives has worked or is likely to work.The behaviour is too widespread. Even more seriously, as John Palfrey and UrsGasser have shown, the belief that file-sharing is legitimate is now too deeplyrooted, particularly among young digital natives.A fundamentally different strategy is necessary to protect creators. Various options have been proposed, including a tax-and-royaltysystem that would provide creators an alternative source of revenue. But thusfar we have lacked the will or imagination to develop and implement them.

Pickle=predicament=dilemma=plight=troublesome situation

How did we get into this pickle? At least three
intertwined纠结的 causes seem to be at work.First, most recent adjustments in the copyright system have been spurred andshaped by interest groups that have stakes in expansion of copyright protection and that fail to take into account the interests of thepublic as a whole. Second, the multilateral intellectual-propertytreaties that now govern影响、统治 most countries establish floors, not ceilings.
The result hasbeen a ratchet: it is easy to increase the levels of legal protection, but hard to decrease them. Third, lawmakers are afflicted with the local maximum problem; they seek to alleviate problems by making modest improvements in the existing regime体制,unable to  see across the valley
to
radically根本完全彻底地 different approaches that would be much better.

上面三个原因的作用（对三个原因的进一步阐述）

Overcoming these obstacles will not be easy. But we mustdo so if we hope to produce a copyright system suited to the conditions and challenges of the coming century.

Featured guest

Mr John Kennedy   

Copyright laws are good for creators and consumers in thedigital era, but they need to be made to work Creative industries are at a crucial moment of theirevolution in the digital world. The music industry has embraced the new environment,yet still only a tiny fractionof its music is getting paid for.The film and TV industries are seeing the power of BitTorrent technology to make movies and TV programmes available to the world without payment or consent.Newspapersare seeing their readers desert them for free news online. And bookpublishers are warning about new popular websites like Scribd, where books canbe downloaded for free, whatever the wishes of the author.
当下社会知识产权不被重视的现状
Music companies were the first to feel the impact of the internet and, although the industry is today stillin decline (down 8% globally in 2008), there has been a sea-change in its approach and in its business models. Music companies have left behind the world of a single-format marketplace, and are now licensing music across multiple channels, including over 400 online download stores. Newservices like the advertising-funded Spotify are even fighting free illegalsites with a free-to-user legitimate alternative.Spotify fights free with free. Despite the severe problems we face, theinnovation and the opportunities are abundantlyclear.

音乐公司和Spotify的对于侵权行为的反击

At this critical moment, copyright laws have never hada more important role to play. They are the enabler of legitimatecreative commerce. They make it possible for creative people, those who want toand who have enough talent, to make a living from music, film, design orwriting.Copyright does not inspire great works, but it does allow them to have value.That value translates into a vast driver of economic activity across the world.In the United States and Europe, copyright directly drives some 6% of economicactivity. Indirectly the impact is much greater.

Copyright的作用在于使作品有价值并促进经济发展

Governments neglect copyright and similar rights at their peril. I was told at a seminar研究会 in Praguethat as longago as June 2004 the Chinese prime minister said: "Futurecompetition in the world is intellectual property competition." Itis likely that Japan, Korea and India are of the same mind.

The music companies
that I represent in this debateare often seen as the canaries down the mineshaft, struggling to "monetize"a business in the digital era. Certainly we have suffered terriblelosses from internet piracy, a market down from US$40 billion in 1999 to US$28billion today. We have developed a range of new business models. And we have nodoubt made some mistakes along the way. But the greatest lesson we have learned is simplythat the most brilliant innovation in the world is incapable of succeeding inan environment of 95% unauthorised free music.

在现在的大环境下，对音乐侵权的的反击是没用的

Others are finding it is not as easy to monetize trafficon the internet as was originally thought. Those great poster children of theinternet, Skype, My Space and Joost are finding it tougher than they expectedand You Tube is having difficulty monetising one of the biggest onlineaudiences there is.

One of my members, a small independent label, last weekput it to me more bluntly: it is nearly over for him, hesaid. A few years ago he employed 22 people and invested in 17 artists. Todaymy independent label colleague employs seven people and invests in only fourartists. His story is being replicated acrossthe music business and across the world. But this decline is not, as some wouldsuggest, an irreversible fact of new technology. It is down todecisions by governments and companies about how seriously theyregard safeguarding creativity and promoting creative industries. It is theimpossible task of competing with free.

只有政府真正采取措施才有可能使跟侵权的竞争取得胜利

One of the myths about copyright is the claim that it holds back technology. In fact copyright does not regulate technology: it influences behavior and protects creators from theabuse滥用 of technology. This is wherecourts and governments can make an impact, be it in the Swedishcriminal prosecution起诉 of the Pirate Bay or in theFrench government's proposed new law to engage internet service providers incurbing piracy.

反驳copyrightholds back technology理由：copyright只是防止technology的滥用

Some argue today that the way to ease the path of creative sectors into thedigital era is to weaken copyright laws. It is hard to give such an idea anycredence economically, commercially or culturally. Copyright laws have helped power thegrowth of modern economies. Good copyright laws help generate strong creativebusinesses and a strong repertoire. It is no coincidence thatBritain, with one of the world's best and oldest copyright laws, is aninternational giant in exporting music nor that Canada, the only top ten musicmarket not to have an up-to-date copyright law, had only one local artist inits top-ten albums chart for 2008. Whencopyright is eroded, investment in artistssuffers directly. There are fewer artists being discovered and brought to market,and there are less revenues to plough back
再投资into new artists.

Copyright has played a vital role in shaping the modern digital environment today. A society that values creative works needs thecopyright laws to protect them and be prepared to enforce them in practice. Noone pretends that copyright laws today are perfect or that all jurisdictions司法权 move quickly enough to keep pace with technology.Exceptions and flexibility are needed to meet consumers' concerns. But theabsence of an adequate legal regime to defend creators' rightshas to be considered unthinkable无法想象
难以置信的.

The challenge for governments today is not to radically change copyright lawsbut to makethem work in an effective way that promotes the future of legitimate creative businesses. France has pointed the way forwards sensibly明显的, with measures that share responsibility for copyright protection with the internetcompanies, who are best positioned to make it work in practice.

Like all revolutions, the digital revolution is a mixture of change and continuity. In five years' time the business models of creativeindustries will look radically different fromtoday, but the principles of rights protection underpinning them will be the same. The mistake is to think ofcopyright as relevant only to an old world: in fact it is the enabler of the new worldand of the economic and cultural benefits it can bring.

Last but not least, copyright industries create jobs. We need themmore than ever before.

Featured guest: Jennifer Urban

Featured guest

Ms Dale Cendali   

From its inception, the United States has been a society of innovators.Americans place a highvalue on original thought andexpression, and have benefited from innovation both in terms of technological advances and by a culture enriched bycreative works. It is no coincidence that the constitution itself, inheriting继承 thenotion from protections already existing in the UK, seeks to boost creativity by empowering Congress "[t]o promote the Progressof Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors andInventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings andDiscoveries" (US Constitution, Art. I, Sect. 8, Cl. 8). The concept underlying
成为..的依据current copyright law is elegant in its simplicity: In order to achieve "Progress ofScience and the useful Arts", the law protects the ability of an author to recoup 收回his orher investment in creating a work by granting exclusive rights to exploit that work for
持续a limited time. The creation of films, computerprograms and other creative works can be very costly and the possibility ofreturns risky. But individuals and firms are willing to invest resources inthese projects in large part because of the prospect of greater future returns.

The constitutional
内在固有的wisdom in granting creators exclusive rights in orderto encourage innovation has resoundingly 轰动的成功的proved correct. Although studies differ on the exact magnitude
重大巨大of the impact, there can be little doubt that theso-called intellectual property industries are a vital part of the American andworld economy. According to one study, these industries are "the mostimportant growth drivers in the current U.S. economy, contributing nearly 40%of the growth achieved by all U.S. private industry and nearly 60% of thegrowth of U.S. exportable 可输出的high-value add products
高附加值产品and services", and core copyright industries contributed $33 billion inreported net export revenues in 2003 (Stephen E. Siwek, Engines of Growth:Economic Contributions of the U.S. Intellectual Property Industries,2005).  According to another analysis,information-communications-technology (ICT) -producing industries"increased 13.2 percent in 2007, accounting for导致引起
做出解释 nearly one-fourth of real GDP growth despiteaccounting for just 3.9 percent of current-dollar GDP," and"experienced double-digit real growth for the fourth consecutive 连续的yearand the largest growth since 2000." Lindberg, Brian M. and Justin M.Monaldo, Advance Statistics on GDP by Industry for 2007 (2008). These sectorsof the economy, whether producing films, television programmes, music, books,software, video games or other analogue
相似物类似情况or digital works, are vital to both the US economicengine and that of the global economy. Moreover, some studies indicate thatdeveloping nations that have simultaneously opened their economies to foreigntechnological investment while also providing stronger intellectual propertyprotections have seen significantly increased productivity and other economicgains.  Keith E. Maskus, "The Role of Intellectual Property Rights inEncouraging Foreign Direct Investment and Technology Transfer," IntellectualProperty and Development (2005). Similarly, evidence suggests that weakintellectual property protections in emerging economies can have a negative impact not only of foreign directinvestment, but on the quality of intellectual property that is transferred. Id.In an age in which traditional manufacturing has become less important and weincreasingly become a nation of intangible assets, protectingthose assets is even more imperative强制的.

Yet despite the overwhelmingevidence of the success of the current incentivesystem, there have been calls to revise dramatically copyright law, including drastically 彻底地shorteningthe current copyright term and greatly expanding fair use. Some have suggestedabolishing copyright altogether. Proponents argue that current copyright law isan anachronism not suited to modern technology. Some advocate permittingsecond-comers to copy files, remix works and otherwise use someone else'sintellectual property, notwithstanding
虽然尽管
介词副词连词the reward of exclusivity theconstitution contemplated沉思打算.

Proponents of radical copyright reform claim that authorswill create works regardless of current incentives, but such thinking ignoresreality. It is very expensive to create many types of creative works, andpeople and firms are unlikely to continue investing in the creation of newworks without a reasonable prospect of return, particularly in trying economictimes. As itis, these investments are often very risky, in many cases resultingin numerous failed efforts that must be supported by the revenue generated by arelatively small number of successful works. If copyright protection werereduced, then the incentives to innovate would also be reduced, undercuttingthe constitutional scheme. The scale, complexityand number of original works would likely drop.

Some advocates of sweeping copyright reform theorize (to propose as atheory) that any harm to original creators would be counterbalanced by the development of new businessmodels that capitalize on
投资previously copyrightedmaterial. But these theories are speculative.Without concrete proof that making such changes will actually prompt more creativity, we could jeopardizethe health of copyright industries that we depend on both economically and interms of the intrinsic value of what theyproduce.

Leaving aside business implications, the arguments extolling a reduction in copyright protection wouldalso probably undermine an artist's natural desire to protect the manner inwhich his or her work is used, thereby creating further disincentives to share,or even create, such works in the first place.