????亞馬遜網站（Amazon）上19世紀50年代的書要比20世紀50年代的書多三倍。這是怎么回事？這都是拜我們的版權法所賜。

????伊利諾伊大學（University of Illinois）法學教授保羅?J?希爾德在最新發表的一篇研究論文中著重強調了這個發現。這篇論文的題目是《版權讓書籍和音樂走開【以及第二責任法則（Secondary Liability Rules）如何讓老歌重獲新生】》。

????這種現象背后的原因其實很簡單，哪怕版權業費盡心機要把它弄得很復雜也無濟于事：隨著時間推移，那些已在公共領域的作品任何人都能印刷和銷售。比起那些連主都可能找不到的作品（即無主作品），這類作品也就更可能在市場中流通。一個特定的版權擁有者（比如一家管理層受到股東密切監督的大型出版社）在某些時候可能無法充分了解某個版權的價值。但如果一部作品屬于所有人，那就很可能會有某些人，或是很多人發現出版它會有價值，而且可能帶來利潤。

????正像希爾德所指出的，版權擁有者用了很多時間花大價錢努力讓每個政策制定者相信，更長的版權保護周期能提供“創造的動力”，而這正是版權法的要義（與一般看法恰恰相反，版權不是讓商業機構受益的——它是為公眾謀福而生的）。但是希爾德的研究表明，創造動力需要的是相對較短的版權保護期。一旦版權賣出掙了大錢，擁有版權對所有者來說就往往只有微不足道的利益了。如果這點小利還嫌太少，不值得再為之花錢推廣發行，公眾就無緣看到這種作品，只有等到版權保護期到期才能一睹為快了。

????而要等到到期可真是遙遙無期。1998年美國國會延長了版權保護期年限（從作者壽命再加50年延長為作者壽命再加70年），這主要是受到各大傳媒公司所宣揚的理論的影響，即更長的保護期可以在某種程度上增強人們創造的動力。而希爾德的研究表明，這種說法純屬無稽之談。與此同時，更長的保護期已經破壞了版權之所以存在的根本理由。希爾德寫道：“版權實際上與作品的銷聲匿跡而非唾手可得息息相關。作品創作出來獲得版權后，它們很快就會從公眾視線中消失，直到它們落到公共領域，不再有主時才能重新大批量地重見天日。”不用說，支持延長保護期的那些人就是竭力要保護他們對還能從中賺錢的少數作品的控制權。

????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.