爱思英语编者按：学者研究发现，亚马逊上19世纪50年代的书要比20世纪50年代的书还多三倍。为什么？答案是，现代版权法超长的版权保护导致很多文化产品无法大规模进入公众消费领域。

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.

希尔德的发现是基于系统研究亚马逊网站上新书（与旧书相对）的多寡而得的，它揭示了19世纪50年代出版的书与20世纪50年代出版的书在可获得性上的巨大差异，尽管后一个时期中出版的书要多得多。这项研究中的一张图表更是清晰地表明，“在公共领域版权到期的1923年之前，亚马逊网站上有数量惊人的初次出版的新书，而在1923年之后，亚马逊首次出版的书数量则急剧下降。”

而与此同时，为版权保护积极游说的利益团体则“在缺乏实证证据支撑的情况下辩称，一旦作品进入公共领域，就会遭到侵害。按照这种理论，是公共利益要求延长版权保护期，以防止公共领域出现版权灾难。”

这些游说者的说法是建立在缺乏经济常识的理论基础上的：即所谓的从根本上说，像书籍、电影和音乐这类传媒产品的市场必须形成垄断才能有效运转。他们说，如果任何人都能销售小说或电影，人们就会一拥而上争相复制生产，导致价格急剧下跌。但是正如希尔德所指出的，尽管可能会出现竞争，但并不会妨碍它们的开发利用，绳子、牛奶、铅笔等不存在垄断的商品就是这样。”而且需要指出的是，上述商品都没有受到有任何时限的专卖权保护，更别提几十年的保护期了。

版权当然是必须要有的，这样创作者才能挣回成本，获得不错的回报——这就能提供创造动力了。但这并不意味着版权所有人应该一直紧抓着自己的版权不放，非要到作品已无法在市场流通为止。

希尔德的这篇论文还提到了《数字千年版权法》（Digital Millennium Copyright Act）的“安全港”这个条款，探讨了它如何让经典老歌能继续在YouTube上传播的原因。YouTube为版权所有者提供了一条从自己拥有的歌中轻松生财的方便之道，哪怕这些歌已被侵权人给上传了。这样就算这些歌无法从其他渠道获得，也能“满足潜在乐迷的市场”。（财富中文网）

Heald's findings, based on a systematic study of availability of new (as opposed to used) books on Amazon, revealed the immense difference between books published in the 1850s and those from the 1950s despite the fact that many more books were published in the latter decade. And, as a chart included with his study starkly reveals, there is an "eye-poppingly disproportionate number of new Amazon books initially published before the public domain cut-off date of 1923 and new Amazon books initially published after 1923."

Meanwhile, copyright lobbyists "argue -- without empirical support -- that bad things happen to the work when it falls into the public domain. The public interest, so the story goes, requires term extension to prevent a public domain calamity."

Those lobbyists pin their arguments on theories that make no economic sense: essentially, that the market for media products like books, films, and music needs to be a monopoly in order to function. If anybody can market a given novel or film, they argue, then too many people will produce copies, driving down the price. But as Heald notes, despite "potential competition, exploitation will occur, just as it does in other markets where no one has a monopoly over the object of exploitation, e.g. the markets for string, milk, and pencils." And none of those things, it should be noted, are protected with exclusive sale rights for any amount of time, much less for decades-long stretches.

Copyright of course is needed so that originators can earn back their costs and make a decent profit -- that's what provides the incentive to create. But that doesn't mean rights-holders should be able to hold their rights to the point where works are actually removed from the marketplace.

Heald's paper also looks at how the "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act help keep older songs in circulation on YouTube (GOOG). YouTube offers an easy way for copyright holders to make money from the songs they own, even when they've been uploaded by infringers, and thus "satisfy the market of potential listeners" even when the songs aren't otherwise available.