怎样真正鼓励艺术创作？ It’s mad to give my heirs rights to a student lit crit essay
Intellectual property law must strike a difficult balance. There is public benefit from the widest possible access to and use of creative output. There is also a public interest in ensuring that artists and their publishers have incentives to produce new work. | 知识产权法必须要做到一个艰难的平衡。公共利益要求能够最大限度地获取和使用创意作品，公共利益也要求能保证艺术家和出版商有动力产出新作品。 |
There are few certainties in judging the effects of such policies, but there are some. John Lennon will never sing another song. James Joyce will never publish another novel (thank goodness), and Picasso will never pick up his brush again. No financial incentives can now affect the quality or quantity of their work. | 在评判这些政策的效果时，很少能有定论，但可以肯定的是：约翰•列侬(John Lennon)绝对不会再唱新歌了，詹姆斯•乔伊斯(James Joyce)绝对不会再出版新小说了（谢天谢地），毕加索(Picasso)也一定不会再拿起画笔了。现在，财务激励再多也不可能影响他们作品的数量和质 量了。 |
Yet the US Congress and the European Commission have been much exercised in increasing the rights of the dead, or those whose creative years are long behind them. The Sonny Bono Copyright Act of 1998 extended the term of American copyright in written material and was quickly followed in Europe. Thanks to the efforts of Mr Bono and my doctors, copyright in my prize essay for excellence in Scottish literature will probably endure into the 22nd century. More recent pressure to extend copyright terms has focused on sound recordings. While this plan has been rejected several times, pressure from interest groups is relentless. | 然而，美国国会和欧盟委员会(European Commission)却多次为死人、或年事已高、创造力早已消失的人提高权利。1998年通过的《桑尼•博诺版权法案》(Sonny Bono Copyright Act)延长了书面材料在美国的版权保护期，这一举动很快就得到欧洲的效仿。多亏博诺先生的推动和我医生的努力，我写的关于苏格兰文学精华的获奖作文的版 权，可能会一直延续到22世纪才到期。后来，延长版权保护期的压力一直集中在录音材料领域。虽然这一提案屡次被拒绝，但利益集团的施压却一直未中断。 |
Of course, the lobbyists are not really representing the great poetry circle in the sky. The principal beneficiaries of these measures are organisations that are very much alive, even if some are struggling to remain so: organisations like EMI/Citigroup, which controls most British popular music recordings of the 1960s, and the Disney Corporation, whose exclusive rights to Walt’s characters were about to expire when Sonny Bono came to the rescue. The focus of current attention, however, is art. | 游说团体当然不是真的在代表已经归天的众多诗人的利益。这类措施的主要受益者是那些依 然活蹦乱跳的企业，尽管其中的一些正在倒闭边缘挣扎：比如握有上世纪60年代多数英国流行音乐唱片版权的百代/花旗(EMI/Citigroup)，以及 拥有华特•迪士尼(Walt Disney)动画人物专有权的迪士尼公司(Disney Corporation)——该公司的这一专有权即将到期之时，桑尼•博诺刚好伸来援手。不过，各方目前关注的焦点是艺术品。 |
Droit de suite gives an artist who has sold his work the right to share the proceeds of any subsequent sale, an idea that seems odd when applied to cars, or clothes, or even books. It is unjust that van Gogh received so little financial reward or public recognition in his short lifetime, but we cannot make it up to him now. | 追续权(droit de suite)是指艺术家将自己的作品售出后，有权从随后的转售中分享收益。这个想法如果照搬到汽车、衣服乃至书籍上，恐怕都会有些匪夷所思。梵高(Van Gogh)在他短暂的一生中获得的金钱回报或公众认可少之又少，这的确不公平，但我们今天是没有办法补偿他的。 |
Still, the resale right was adopted in France, then Germany; the European Union was subsequently persuaded to take the idea on board. The winning argument was that since France had foolishly implemented this policy unilaterally, French auctioneers would suffer a competitive disadvantage unless everyone else adopted it as well. They do: Paris is a world centre for painters, for art museums, but not for art sales. Britain, by some distance Europe’s largest art market, managed to secure a derogation for 10 years in respect of the work of artists who are no longer alive. But these years are about to run out. | 不过，这种转售权利还是在法国和德国相继得到采纳，欧盟后来也在劝说之下接受了这个想 法。占上风的论点认为，由于法国愚蠢地单方面实施了这种政策，因此，除非所有其它国家也都采取这种措施，否则法国拍卖行将处于竞争劣势。事实的确如此：巴 黎是画家和艺术博物馆的一个世界中心，但不是艺术品销售的世界中心。作为欧洲领先幅度较大的最大艺术品市场，英国争取到了对过世艺术家的作品暂缓10年执 行追续权的宽限。不过这10年时间很快就要用尽了。 |
The argument that France would suffer by unilateral action does, of course, apply equally to the European Union as a whole. The initial directive required the Commission to negotiate similar agreements globally and to report on the effects of its policy within 10 years of implementation. No report has appeared and no such agreements have been made – or are likely to be, since there is no flicker of interest in droit de suite in the US, Switzerland or China. | 法国会因为单方面行动而受损的论点，自然也适用于整个欧盟。最初的指令要求欧盟委员会 与全球各国谈判、以达成类似的协议，并在实施10年内报告政策的效果。目前尚无任何报告发布，也没达成任何此类协议——或者说似乎不可能达成此类协议，因 为美国、瑞士或中国对追续权都没有表现出半点兴趣。 |
If we want to support new creative endeavours, it is easy to think of more effective measures. It was my vanity, the spur of the prize, and the encouragement of Mr Steel that prompted me to write that Scottish essay in 1959, not the prospect of rewards to my distant heirs. A similar mix of motives leads me to write this article. Public support of artists should focus on recognition, immediate financial recompense, and a supportive political and cultural environment. | 如果我们想支持新的创作努力，那么不难想出更有效的举措。促使我在1959年写出那篇 关于苏格兰文学的作文的，是虚荣心、奖项的刺激还有斯蒂尔(Steel)先生的鼓励，不是我遥不可及的继承人得到回报的前景。促使我写出这篇文章的，也是 类似的一系列因素。公共对艺术家的支持，重点应放在对他们表示认可、保障他们获得即刻的经济回报、以及为他们创造有帮助的政治和文化环境上。 |
It is time to distinguish sharply between the public interest in stimulating new creative work and the private interest in squeezing more profit from work that was created long ago. We do not encourage originality by conferring windfall gains on the Disney Corporation, EMI, Citigroup, and the Picasso estate. Little understanding of either culture or economics is required to recognise that new ideas in art, music and literature will come from the living, not the dead. | 一边是刺激新创造性作品的公共利益，另一边是从很久以前创作的作品中压榨出更多利润的 私人利益，现在是时候将二者明确区分开来了。给迪士尼、百代、花旗集团乃至毕加索的后人送去意外之财，并不是在鼓励原创。艺术、音乐和文学的新思想只能来 自活人，不会来自死人——认识到这一点既不需要懂文化，也不需要懂经济学。 |
译者/王柯伦 |
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