## 您说过“知识产权”吗？这是一种迷惑性的幻景

> Copyright (C) 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2015 Richard Stallman。本文创作于 2004 年并且发表在 Policy Futures in Education, vol. 4, n. 4, pp. 334–336, 2006。

It has become fashionable to toss copyright, patents,
and trademarks—three separate and different entities involving three
separate and different sets of laws—plus a dozen other laws into one pot
and call it “intellectual property.” The distorting and confusing term
did not become common by accident. Companies that gain from the
confusion promoted it. The clearest way out of the confusion is to
reject the term entirely.

有这样一种时兴的趋势：将版权、专利、商标——三种相互独立而又不同，并且涉及三种独立而又不同的法律的概念——再加上其他几十种法律一股脑地装进一个罐中，并且称之为“知识产权”。这种涵义扭曲而又使人混淆的概念变得普遍流行并非偶然。从这种混淆中得利的商业公司推动了这种混淆。要想避免这种混淆，最明了的方式就是完全拒绝这一概念。

According to Professor Mark Lemley, now of the Stanford Law School, the
widespread use of the term “intellectual property” is a fashion that
followed the 1967 founding of the World “Intellectual Property”
Organization (WIPO), and only became really common in recent years.
(WIPO is formally a UN organization, but in fact represents the
interests of the holders of copyrights, patents, and trademarks.) Wide
use dates from around 1990.

根据现在供职于斯坦福法学院的 Mark Lemley 教授的观点，对“知识产权”这一概念的广泛使用变得流行是始于 1967 年世界“知识产权”组织（WIPO）的成立，而这一概念只是在最近数年才变得真正普遍。（WIPO 是联合国（UN）官方机构，但它实际上代表的是版权、专利及商标持有人的利益。）这一概念的广泛使用始于 1990 年前后。

The term carries a bias that is not hard to see: it suggests thinking
about copyright, patents and trademarks by analogy with property rights
for physical objects. (This analogy is at odds with the legal
philosophies of copyright law, of patent law, and of trademark law, but
only specialists know that.) These laws are in fact not much like
physical property law, but use of this term leads legislators to change
them to be more so. Since that is the change desired by the companies
that exercise copyright, patent and trademark powers, the bias
introduced by the term “intellectual property” suits them.

这一概念本身具有一种不难觉察的偏见：它暗示人们在思考版权、专利和商标的时候同实物的产权进行类比。（这种类比与版权法、专利法、商标法存在矛盾，但只有专业人士了解这种矛盾。）这些法律实际上并不像物权法，但这一概念的滥用使得立法者将它们修改得越来越像后者。由于这种转变正是那些行使版权、专利和商标权力的商业公司所求之不得的，于是这种由“知识产权”这一概念所带来的偏见迎合了它们。

The bias is reason enough to reject the term, and people have often
asked me to propose some other name for the overall category—or have
proposed their own alternatives (often humorous). Suggestions include
IMPs, for Imposed Monopoly Privileges, and GOLEMs, for
Government-Originated Legally Enforced Monopolies. Some speak of
“exclusive rights regimes,” but referring to restrictions as “rights” is
doublethink too.

这种偏见已经足以成为拒绝这一概念的理由，并且人们经常建议我为这一整体类别起个别的名字——也有人提出了他们自己起的名字（通常是幽默的）。这些名字包括“小恶魔”（IMPs，意为 Imposed Monopoly Privileges，即“强制垄断特权”）以及“魔像”（GOLEMs，意为 Government-Originated Legally Enforced Monopolies，即“政府主导的合法强制垄断”），还有人说“专属权利王国”（exclusive rights regime，ERR），但将“限制”（restriction）指代为“权利”也是一种双关。

Some of these alternative names would be an improvement, but it is a
mistake to replace “intellectual property” with any other term. A
different name will not address the term’s deeper problem:
overgeneralization. There is no such unified thing as “intellectual
property”—it is a mirage. The only reason people think it makes sense as
a coherent category is that widespread use of the term has misled them
about the laws in question.

有些别名可能确实是更好的称谓，但是，使用它们中的任何一个来指代“知识产权”则是一种错误。由于其他名字都未能揭露这一概念的深层次问题：过度广义化。并不存在诸如“知识产权”这样高度统一的事物——它是一种幻景。人们之所以会误认为“知识产权”是一种合乎逻辑的分类，原因仅仅在于这一概念的广泛使用对于人们理解相关法律产生了误导。

The term “intellectual property” is at best a catch-all to lump together
disparate laws. Nonlawyers who hear one term applied to these various
laws tend to assume they are based on a common principle and function
similarly.

“知识产权”这一概念充其量只是用于把不同类的法律混装在一起的杂物容器。非律师的人们在听到这一适用于不同法律的概念时，倾向于想象它们相似地基于某种共同的原则和功能。

Nothing could be further from the case. These laws originated
separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have
different rules, and raise different public policy issues.

然而，事实远非如此。这些法律是独立起源的、以不同方式演进的、覆盖不同的行为、拥有不同的规则、并且由此带来了不同的公共政策问题。

For instance, copyright law was designed to promote authorship and art,
and covers the details of expression of a work. Patent law was intended
to promote the publication of useful ideas, at the price of giving the
one who publishes an idea a temporary monopoly over it—a price that may
be worth paying in some fields and not in others.

例如，版权法被设计为提升作者身份和艺术，并且覆盖了作品表达的细节。专利法的本意是促进发表有用的想法，其代价是赋予想法的发表者关于此想法的暂时垄断权——这种代价对于某些领域是值得付出的，而对于其他领域则不然。

Trademark law, by contrast, was not intended to promote any particular
way of acting, but simply to enable buyers to know what they are buying.
Legislators under the influence of the term “intellectual property,”
however, have turned it into a scheme that provides incentives for
advertising. And these are just three out of many laws that the term
refers to.

与之不同的是，商标法的本意并非提升任何行为方式，而只是让消费者知道他们所购买的东西是什么。受“知识产权”概念影响的立法者却将它变成了一种刺激广告行为的模式。而这些只是他们所谈论的众多法律的三种。

Since these laws developed independently, they are different in every
detail, as well as in their basic purposes and methods. Thus, if you
learn some fact about copyright law, you’d be wise to assume that patent
law is different. You’ll rarely go wrong!

由于这些法律是独立发展的，它们在任何细节上都是不同的。它们的基本目的和方法也是不同的。因此，如果您知道某些关于版权法的细节，并且您明智地想象专利法在这些方面与之不同，您将几乎不会犯任何错误！

In practice, nearly all general statements you encounter that are
formulated using “intellectual property” will be false. For instance,
you’ll see claims that “its” purpose is to “promote innovation,” but
that only fits patent law and perhaps plant variety monopolies.
Copyright law is not concerned with innovation; a pop song or novel is
copyrighted even if there is nothing innovative about it. Trademark law
is not concerned with innovation; if I start a tea store and call it
“rms tea,” that would be a solid trademark even if I sell the same teas
in the same way as everyone else. Trade secret law is not concerned with
innovation, except tangentially; my list of tea customers would be a
trade secret with nothing to do with innovation.

事实上，您所遇到的那些基于“知识产权”所阐述的广义化的陈述几乎全部是错误的。例如，您可能会看到这样的宣传：“知识产权”的目的是“促进创新”，但这仅仅适用于专利法，也许还有植物品种垄断权。版权法与创新没有关系，一支流行歌曲或是一部小说即使没有任何创新也可以获得版权。商标法和创新也没有关系；如果我自营一家茶店并将其命名为“RMS 茶”，它将成为合法的商标，即使我以和任何其他人相同的方式贩卖茶饮。商业机密法和创新也没有关系，即使有，也只是稍微沾边；我的茶店客户清单可以成为商业机密，但这与创新没有关系。

You will also see assertions that “intellectual property” is concerned
with “creativity,” but really that only fits copyright law. More than
creativity is needed to make a patentable invention. Trademark law and
trade secret law have nothing to do with creativity; the name “rms tea”
isn’t creative at all, and neither is my secret list of tea customers.

您也会见到这样的论断，“知识产权”与创造力有关，但事实上这只适用于版权法。除了创造力之外，还需要其他东西才能打造出一件可获专利的发明。商标法和商业机密法与创造力没有关系；“RMS 茶”的名字并不体现任何创造力，我的茶店客户机密清单也和创造力无关。

People often say “intellectual property” when they really mean some
larger or smaller set of laws. For instance, rich countries often impose
unjust laws on poor countries to squeeze money out of them. Some of
these laws are among those called “intellectual property” laws, and
others are not; nonetheless, critics of the practice often grab for that
label because it has become familiar to them. By using it, they
misrepresent the nature of the issue. It would be better to use an
accurate term, such as “legislative colonization,” that gets to the
heart of the matter.

当人们谈论“知识产权”时，他们通常真正想要表达的是或多或少的一系列法律。例如，富国经常向穷国强行施加不平等法律以榨取其钱财。这些不平等法律中的一些也位于它们所称的“知识产权法”之中，而其他一些则不是；然而，这一行为的批评者通常会使用“知识产权”这一标签，由于他们对此很熟悉。通过使用这一概念，他们对问题的本质进行了错误解读。最好能够使用一个准确的术语，诸如“立法殖民”，这样的术语切中要害。

Laymen are not alone in being confused by this term. Even law professors
who teach these laws are lured and distracted by the seductiveness of
the term “intellectual property,” and make general statements that
conflict with facts they know. For example, one professor wrote in 2006:

非专业人士并不是被“知识产权”这一概念所迷惑的唯一人群。即使是讲授这些法律的法学教授也会被这一概念的迷惑性所引诱和误导，并且做出与其所知的事实相违背的广义化陈述。例如，一位教授在 2006 年写道：

> Unlike their descendants who now work the floor at WIPO, the framers
> of the US constitution had a principled, procompetitive attitude to
> intellectual property. They knew rights might be necessary, but…they
> tied Congress’s hands, restricting its power in multiple ways.

> 与其现在效力于 WIPO 的继承者不同，美国宪法的制定者对知识产权持有原则坚定、促进竞争的态度。他们知道权利可能是必需的，但是……他们束缚了国会的双手，并且以多种不同的方式限制它的权力。

That statement refers to Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the US
Constitution, which authorizes copyright law and patent law. That
clause, though, has nothing to do with trademark law, trade secret law,
or various others. The term “intellectual property” led that professor
to make a false generalization.

这段陈述所指的是美国宪法第 I 章，第 8 条， 第 8 款，它许可了版权法和专利法。但这一条款与商标法、商业机密法或是任何其他不同的法律无关。而“知识产权”这一概念诱使那位教授做出了错误的广义化。

The term “intellectual property” also leads to simplistic thinking. It
leads people to focus on the meager commonality in form that these
disparate laws have—that they create artificial privileges for certain
parties—and to disregard the details which form their substance: the
specific restrictions each law places on the public, and the
consequences that result. This simplistic focus on the form encourages
an “economistic” approach to all these issues.

“知识产权”这一概念也会导致过度简单化的思考。它促使人们仅仅关注这些不同类的法律所拥有的微小的形式上的共同点——于是他们为某些群体创造了人为的特权——而无视那些构成它们的基础的细节：每种法律为公众施加的特别的限制及其带来的后果。这种对于形式的过度简单化的关注助长了一种应对所有这些问题的经济主义方式。

Economics operates here, as it often does, as a vehicle for unexamined
assumptions. These include assumptions about values, such as that amount
of production matters while freedom and way of life do not, and factual
assumptions which are mostly false, such as that copyrights on music
supports musicians, or that patents on drugs support life-saving
research.

如同它经常发挥作用的方式，经济在这里成为了未经检验的设想的载体。这包括了关于价值的设想，诸如产量与之有关，而自由和生活方式与之无关；以及那些经事实证明大部分是错误的设想，诸如音乐版权是在支持音乐家，或是药品专利是在支持救生药物的研究。

Another problem is that, at the broad scale implicit in the term
“intellectual property,” the specific issues raised by the various laws
become nearly invisible. These issues arise from the specifics of each
law—precisely what the term “intellectual property” encourages people to
ignore. For instance, one issue relating to copyright law is whether
music sharing should be allowed; patent law has nothing to do with this.
Patent law raises issues such as whether poor countries should be
allowed to produce life-saving drugs and sell them cheaply to save
lives; copyright law has nothing to do with such matters.

还有一个问题是，由于“知识产权”这一概念在很大程度上的含混不清，由不同法律引起的特定问题变得几乎不可见。这些特别的问题源自每一条特定的法律——而这恰恰是“知识产权”这一概念试图诱导人们所忽略的。例如，版权法所带来的问题之一是音乐分享是否应该被允许；而专利法与此无关。专利法引起的问题诸如穷国是否应该被允许生产救生药物并且以较低的价格出售以挽救生命，版权法与此无关。

Neither of these issues is solely economic in nature, and their
noneconomic aspects are very different; using the shallow economic
overgeneralization as the basis for considering them means ignoring the
differences. Putting the two laws in the “intellectual property” pot
obstructs clear thinking about each one.

这些问题究其本质都不是纯粹的经济问题，它们在非经济层面有着显著差别；基于经济方面的肤浅的过度广义化概念来试图思考这些问题，意味着忽略它们之间的区别。将两种法律一同装进“知识产权”的罐中将会阻碍对其任意一方进行清晰的思考。

Thus, any opinions about “the issue of intellectual property” and any
generalizations about this supposed category are almost surely foolish.
If you think all those laws are one issue, you will tend to choose your
opinions from a selection of sweeping overgeneralizations, none of which
is any good.

因此，任何关于“知识产权问题”的观点以及任何关于这种假想类别的广义化几乎一定是愚蠢的。如果您认为所有这些法律都是一个问题，您将会倾向于从过于笼统的过度广义化概念中选择一种作为您的观点，而这些都是有百害无一利的。

If you want to think clearly about the issues raised by patents, or
copyrights, or trademarks, or various other different laws, the first
step is to forget the idea of lumping them together, and treat them as
separate topics. The second step is to reject the narrow perspectives
and simplistic picture the term “intellectual property” suggests.
Consider each of these issues separately, in its fullness, and you have
a chance of considering them well.

如果您想要对专利法、版权法、商标法或是其他不同法律所引起的问题进行清晰的思考，第一步就是忘记将它们不分青红皂白地放在一起的想法，并且将它们作为独立的问题区别对待。第二步是拒绝“知识产权”这一概念所提示的狭隘视角和过度简单化的情景。只有对每个问题进行独立且完整的思考，您才能有机会清晰地思考它们。

### Notes {#notes .subheading}

### 注记

-   See also “The Curious History of Komongistan (Busting the Term
    ‘Intellectual Property’),” at
    <http://gnu.org/philosophy/komongistan.html>.

-   参见“The Curious History of Komongistan (Busting the Term ‘Intellectual Property’)”一文，位于<http://gnu.org/philosophy/komongistan.html>。

-   Countries in Africa are a lot more similar than these laws, and
    “Africa” is a coherent geographical concept; nonetheless, talking
    about “Africa” instead of a specific country causes lots of
    confusion.[(1)](#FOOT1)

-   非洲各国之间的关系比这些法律之间的关系更为相似，并且“非洲”是一个合乎逻辑的地理概念；然而，谈论“非洲”而非某个特定的国家将会引发大量混乱。[(1)](#FOOT1)

-   Rickard Falkvinge supports rejection of this term.[(2)](#FOOT2)

-   Rickard Falkvinge 也支持拒绝使用“知识产权”这一概念。[(2)](#FOOT2)

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### Footnotes

### [(1)](#DOCF1)

@raggedright Nicolas Kayser-Bril, “Africa Is Not a Country”，于 2014 年一月 24 日发表于<http://theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/24/africa-clinton>. @end raggedright

### [(2)](#DOCF2)

@raggedright “Language Matters: Framing the Copyright Monopoly So We Can Keep Our Liberties”，于 2013 年七月 14 日发表于[http://torrentfreak.com/language-matters-framing-the-copyright-monopoly-so-we-can-keep-our-liberties-130714](http://torrentfreak.com/language-matters-%3Cbr%3Eframing-the-copyright-monopoly-so-we-can-keep-our-liberties-130714)。@end raggedright

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