关于盗版的对与错之争

导读：在未经版权所有人同意或授权的情况下，对其拥有著作权的作品、出版物等进行复制、再分发的行为，即可认定为盗版。在绝大多数国家和地区，此行为被定义为侵犯知识产权的违法行为，甚至构成犯罪，会受到所在国家的处罚。

An American anti-piracy bill tries to stem the global theft of intellectual property.

美国议会提出反盗版议案，打击跨国知识产权侵权。

ILLEGAL copying and sharing of copyrighted material is hard enough to stop within a country. But when the internet takes traffic across borders it is almost unmanageable. American-owned intellectual property, say, may be uploaded in one country and downloaded in a second, via a website whose computers are in a third, operated by anonymous enthusiasts (or criminals) from goodness-knows-where. So whom do you sue, and in which courts? The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), now before America's Congress, is the latest of many recent attempts to defend property rights on the internet.

在国内，打击盗版已是十分困难；而互联网时代的到来，使得信息的交流跨越国界，打击盗版几乎成为不可能任务。举个例子，版权在美国的作品，从一个国家上传到网上，通过另一个国家网站，又下载到第三个国家的电脑中，而背后的操作的，是匿名下载狂热爱好者（或是侵权罪犯），可能来自世界上任何地方。去起诉谁，又在哪起诉？这确实成了难题。美国近来为打击互联网产权侵权采取了一系列措施，最近的一项就是《禁止网络盗版法案》（SOPA），正在接受议会审查。

The bill aims to cut off Americans' access to foreign pirate websites by squeezing intermediaries. Rights-holders, such as Hollywood film studios, will be able to request that a credit-card firm or advertising network stop doing business with a foreign site; or ask a search engine to take down links to the site; or ask an internet-service provider to block the site's domain name, making it harder to reach. The intermediary then has just five days to comply or rebut the complaint; after that the rights-holder can go to court.

该议案旨在通过限制中介媒介，阻止美国访问外国盗版网站的接入。好莱坞的电影工作室等版权内容持有者将有权要求信用卡公司和广告发布网站终止与侵权外国网站的业务往来；要求搜索引撤销指向其站点的链接；或要求网络服务提供商封锁该站点域名，阻止该网站的接入。被控中介媒介有5天时间整改或提出抗辩，逾期版权内容持有者可诉诸法庭。

This would rope intermediaries into law enforcement to an unprecedented degree, and give rights-holders exceptional power. Critics of the bill say that takedown requests and court orders will swamp smaller firms and start-ups. They say that blocking entire websites via their domain name smacks of censorship, and that determined downloaders will anyway find the block easy to bypass.

这项议案，对中介媒介的限制是前所未有的，它赋予了版权内容持有者极大的力量。不过，批评者指出，链接撤销和法庭命令会让小型企业、新兴企业疲于应付，不利于其成长。通过域名封锁整个网络更有信息审查之嫌。而且，这种封锁对真正想要下载的人不会起作用，他们很轻易就能绕过。

Two mighty coalitions have formed around SOPA. Supporting the bill are not only film studios and music labels, but also drug firms and other manufacturers. Though SOPA itself does not affect them, they have a big interest in fighting any kind of intellectual-property infringement. On the other side are internet companies, technology investors and digital activists, who share an interest in disrupting business models and a dislike for anything that smacks of old-fashioned regulation.

围绕是否通过SOPA，形成了两个强有力的阵营。支持者不仅有电影工作室、唱片公司，还有制药企业等制造商，虽然SOPA对后者没有直接影响，但只要是对抗知识产权侵权，他们都很关心。反对者阵营包括网络公司、科技投资者和数码活动者，他们志在革新商业模式，反对一切过时的商业规则。