版权之害

    亚马逊网站（Amazon）上19世纪50年代的书要比20世纪50年代的书多三倍。这是怎么回事？这都是拜我们的版权法所赐。

    伊利诺伊大学（University of Illinois）法学教授保罗•J•希尔德在最新发表的一篇研究论文中着重强调了这个发现。这篇论文的题目是《版权让书籍和音乐走开【以及第二责任法则（Secondary Liability Rules）如何让老歌重获新生】》。

    这种现象背后的原因其实很简单，哪怕版权业费尽心机要把它弄得很复杂也无济于事：随着时间推移，那些已在公共领域的作品任何人都能印刷和销售。比起那些连主都可能找不到的作品（即无主作品），这类作品也就更可能在市场中流通。一个特定的版权拥有者（比如一家管理层受到股东密切监督的大型出版社）在某些时候可能无法充分了解某个版权的价值。但如果一部作品属于所有人，那就很可能会有某些人，或是很多人发现出版它会有价值，而且可能带来利润。

    正像希尔德所指出的，版权拥有者用了很多时间花大价钱努力让每个政策制定者相信，更长的版权保护周期能提供“创造的动力”，而这正是版权法的要义（与一般看法恰恰相反，版权不是让商业机构受益的——它是为公众谋福而生的）。但是希尔德的研究表明，创造动力需要的是相对较短的版权保护期。一旦版权卖出挣了大钱，拥有版权对所有者来说就往往只有微不足道的利益了。如果这点小利还嫌太少，不值得再为之花钱推广发行，公众就无缘看到这种作品，只有等到版权保护期到期才能一睹为快了。

    而要等到到期可真是遥遥无期。1998年美国国会延长了版权保护期年限（从作者寿命再加50年延长为作者寿命再加70年），这主要是受到各大传媒公司所宣扬的理论的影响，即更长的保护期可以在某种程度上增强人们创造的动力。而希尔德的研究表明，这种说法纯属无稽之谈。与此同时，更长的保护期已经破坏了版权之所以存在的根本理由。希尔德写道：“版权实际上与作品的销声匿迹而非唾手可得息息相关。作品创作出来获得版权后，它们很快就会从公众视线中消失，直到它们落到公共领域，不再有主时才能重新大批量地重见天日。”不用说，支持延长保护期的那些人就是竭力要保护他们对还能从中赚钱的少数作品的控制权。

    On Amazon (AMZN), there are three times more books available from the 1850s than from the 1950s. How is this possible? Our crazy copyright laws.

    The finding is highlighted in a new research paper by University of Illinois law professor Paul J. Heald titled "How Copyright Makes Books and Music Disappear (and How Secondary Liability Rules Help Resurrect Old Songs)."

    The reasoning is fairly simple, despite strained efforts by the copyright industries to make it seem more complicated: After the passage of some time, works that are in the public domain, and therefore available to be published and marketed by anyone, are more likely to stay in the marketplace than are works that are owned, perhaps by someone who can't even be found (see:orphan works). A particular copyright owner (such as a big publishing house with stockholders breathing down executive necks) might not see sufficient value in a given copyright at a given moment. But if a work is available to all, it's far more likely that someone, or maybe lots of someones, will find it worthwhile, and potentially profitable, to publish it.

    As Heald points out, copyright owners spend a lot of time and money trying to convince everyone policymakers that longer copyrights tend to provide the "incentive to create" that is central to copyright laws (contrary to widespread belief, copyright doesn't exist to benefit businesses -- it exists to benefit the public.) But Heald's study shows that the incentive to create requires a relatively short copyright life. Once the big money has been made, copyright ownership is often of only marginal benefit to the owner. If the margin is deemed too small to invest in distribution of a work, the public is deprived of that work until the copyright runs out.

    And that is a really long time. When Congress extended the life of copyrights in 1998 (from the life of the author plus 50 years to the life of the author plus 70 years), it relied heavily on the theory, pushed by media companies, that the longer rights would somehow strengthen the incentive to create. Heald's study shows this to be piffle. Meanwhile, the longer copyrights have sabotaged the core reason copyrights exist. "Copyright correlates significantly with the disappearance of works rather than with their availability," Heald writes. "Shortly after works are created and proprietized, they tend to disappear from public view only to reappear in significantly increased numbers when they fall into the public domain and lose their owners." Of course, proponents of longer copyrights are simply trying to protect their control over those few works that they can still wring money from.