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1. E-books Must Increase Our Freedom, Not Decrease It {#e-books-must-increase-our-freedom-notdecrease-it .chapter}
=====================================================
电子书必须增进我们的自由而非限制我们的自由
==========================================
I love The Jehovah Contract, and I’d like everyone else to love it too.
I have lent it out at least six times over the years. Printed books let
us do that.
我喜欢 The Jehovah Contract 这本书,也希望每个人都喜欢它。这些年来,我已经至少借出它六次了。纸版书允许我们如此做。
I couldn’t do that with most commercial e-books. It’s “not allowed.” And
if I tried to disobey, the software in e-readers has malicious features
called Digital Restrictions Management (DRM, for short) to restrict
reading, so it simply won’t work. The e-books are encrypted so that only
proprietary software with malicious functionality can display them.
我不能对大部分商业电子书如此做,由于这是“不被允许的”。如果我们试图违反,阅读器中的软件具有一种称为数字限制管理(DRM)的恶意功能,它将会限制用户阅读,因此这简单地不行。由于电子书是加密的,只有具有恶意功能的私有软件才能显示它们。
Many other habits that we readers are accustomed to are “not allowed”
for e-books. With the Amazon “Kindle” (for which “Swindle”[(1)](#FOOT1)
is a more fitting name), to take one example, users can’t buy a book
anonymously with cash. “Kindle” books are typically available from
Amazon only, and Amazon makes users identify themselves. Thus, Amazon
knows exactly which books each user has read. In a country such as the
UK, where you can be prosecuted for possessing a forbidden
book,[(2)](#FOOT2) this is more than hypothetically Orwellian.
我们作为读者所习惯的很多其他阅读方式对于电子书是“不被允许的”。对于亚马逊 Kindle (它的更合适的名字是 Swindle [(1)](#FOOT1)),作为一个例子,用户不能使用现金匿名购买电子书。Kindle 的电子书通常仅可以从亚马逊获得,而亚马逊要求用户提供身份信息。由此亚马逊知道每位用户读了哪些书。在某些国家,例如英国,您可能会由于拥有一本禁书而被起诉[(2)](#FOOT2),这比假想中的欧威尔主义更加残酷。
@firstcopyingnotice{{@footnoterule 参阅 “The Danger of E-Books” (@pageref{E-Books Danger}) 一文,并且考虑加入我们的关于电子书的威胁的邮件列表,位于 <http://defectivebydesign.org/ebooks.html>. @medskip
@footnoterule@smallskip 著作权所有 (C) 2012 Richard Stallman {本文最初于 2012 年四月 17 日以标题“Technology Should Help Us Share, Not Constrain Us,”,发表于英国卫报<http://guardian.co.uk>,并带有一些意外的修订。此版本整合了部分修订,同时恢复了部分原文。本文是 @fsfsthreecite 的一部分。}
Furthermore, you can’t sell the e-book after you read it (if Amazon has
its way, the used book stores where I have passed many an afternoon will
be history). You can’t give it to a friend either, because according to
Amazon you never really owned it. Amazon requires users to sign an
end-user license agreement (EULA) which says so.
更坏的是,您不能在读完一部电子书之后将其转卖。(如果亚马逊按其意志行事,那些我可以在一个下午光顾好几家的旧书店将成为历史。)您也不能将其赠与他人,由于根据亚马逊的霸王条款,您不能真正拥有它。亚马逊要求用户签订的最终用户许可协议(EULA)如是说。
You can’t even be sure it will still be in your machine tomorrow. People
reading 1984 in the “Kindle” had an Orwellian experience: their e-books
vanished right before their eyes, as Amazon used a malicious software
feature called a “back door” to remotely delete them (virtual
book-burning; is that what “Kindle” means?). But don’t worry; Amazon
promised never to do this again, except by order of the state.
您甚至不能保证某部电子书明天还存在于您的机器中。人们在使用 Kindle 阅读《1984》的时候亲历了欧威尔主义:他们的电子书在眼皮底下消失了,由于亚马逊使用了一种带有后门的恶意软件将其远程删除。(虚拟世界的焚书行为,这就是 Kindle 的涵义吗?)但是请不必担心,亚马逊承诺不再如此做,除非有国家命令。
With software, either the users control the program (making such
software Libre or Free[(3)](#FOOT3)) or the program controls its users
(non-Libre). Amazon’s e-book policies imitate the distribution policies
of non-Libre software, but that’s not the only relationship between the
two. The malicious software features described above[(4)](#FOOT4) are
imposed on users via software that’s not Libre. If a Libre program had
malicious features like those, some users skilled at programming would
remove them, then provide the corrected version to all the other users.
Users can’t change non-Libre software, which makes it an ideal
instrument for exercising power over the public.[(5)](#FOOT5)
对于软件,要么用户控制程序(称这类软件为自由的[(3)](#FOOT3)),要么程序控制用户(非自由)。亚马逊的电子书政策模仿私有软件的发布政策,但这并非二者之间的唯一关联。上述恶意软件特性[(4)](#FOOT4)是通过私有软件强加给用户的。如果一款自由软件拥有类似的恶意特性,一些具有编程技能的用户可以移除它们,然后将修正后的版本提供给其他用户。用户不能更改私有软件,这使得它们成为其开发者对公众行使不公权力的理想工具[(5)](#FOOT5)。
Any one of these encroachments on our freedom is reason aplenty to say
no. If these policies were limited to Amazon, we’d bypass them, but the
other e-book dealers’ policies are roughly similar.
以上这些对我们的自由的侵害中的任何一种都足以作为我们说“不”的理由。如果这些政策仅限于亚马逊,我们可以跳过它们,但是其他电子书发行商的政策大致相似。
What worries me most is the prospect of losing the option of printed
books. The Guardian has announced “digital-only reads”: in other words,
books available only at the price of freedom. I will not read any book
at that price. Five years from now, will unauthorized copies be the only
ethically acceptable copies for most books?
最让我们担心的是未来可能失去纸版书的选项。英国卫报宣称“仅限数字阅读”,换言之,书籍只能靠牺牲自由去换取。我不会以此为代价阅读任何书籍。从现在起的五年以后,对于大部分书籍,未经许可的副本会不会成为仅存的伦理上可接受的版本呢?
It doesn’t have to be that way. With anonymous payment on the internet,
paying for downloads of non-DRM non-EULA e-books would respect our
freedom. Physical stores could sell such e-books for cash, like digital
music on CDs—still available even though the music industry is
aggressively pushing DRM-restrictive services such as Spotify. Physical
CD stores face the burden of an expensive inventory, but physical e-book
stores could write copies onto your USB memory stick, the only inventory
being memory sticks to sell if you need.
事情不必须朝着那个方向发展。通过在互联网上进行匿名支付,购买并下载无 DRM、无 EULA 的电子书将会尊重我们的自由。实体书店可以接受现金购买这样的电子书,如同光盘(CD)上的数字音乐仍然可能买到,即使是在现在这个音乐产业极具侵略性地推广带有 DRM 限制的服务诸如 Spotify 的时代。实体 CD 商店不得不面对昂贵的库存成本负担,而实体电子书商店可以将电子书副本复制到您的 USB 存储器上,这是唯一可以卖给您的载体,如果您需要。
The reason publishers give for their restrictive e-books practices is to
stop people from sharing copies. They say this is for the sake of the
authors; but even if it did serve the authors’ interests (which for
quite famous authors it may), it could not justify DRM, EULAs or the
Digital Economy Act which persecutes readers for sharing. In practice,
the copyright system does a bad job of supporting authors aside from the
most popular ones. Other authors’ principal interest is to be better
known, so sharing their work benefits them as well as readers. Why not
switch to a system that does the job better and is compatible with
sharing?
出版商关于它们限制电子书使用自由所给出的解释是为了阻止用户分享电子书副本。它们宣称这是为了作者着想;但即使它们真的服务于作者的利益(对于非常著名的作者,也许是这样),这并不能成为为剥夺读者自由的 DRM、EULA 和数字经济法案辩护的理由。事实上,版权系统对于支持作者,除了那些最著名的作者以外,做出了极坏的事情。其他作者的基本利益应当被更好地为人们所了解,因此分享他们的作品对于他们和读者同样有益。为何不转向一种能够更好地解决这个问题而又与分享相容的体系呢?
A tax on memories and internet connectivity, along the general lines of
what most EU countries do, could do the job well if three points are got
right. The money should be collected by the state and distributed
according to law, not given to a private collecting society; it should
be divided among all authors, and we mustn’t let companies take any of
it from them; and the distribution of money should be based on a sliding
scale, not in linear proportion to popularity. I suggest using the cube
root of each author’s popularity: if A is eight times as popular as B, A
gets twice B’s amount (not eight times B’s amount). This would support
many fairly popular writers adequately instead of making a few stars
richer.
对存储器和互联网连接征税,与大多数欧盟国家正在实施的一般准则放在一起,可以更好地完成这项任务,如果以下三点得到满足。这笔资金应该由国家收集并依法发放,而非给予私人的集资组织;它应当分给所有作者,我们不能允许商业公司侵占其中的任何一分钱;并且这笔钱的分配应当基于一种变化的尺度而非按照流行度的线性比例。我建议使用作者流行度的立方根作为依据:如果 A 的流行度是 B 的八倍,则 A 得到 B 的两倍的钱(而不是八倍)。这将给予众多普通作家足够的支持,而非仅仅使得少数明星大腕盆满钵满。
Another system is to give each e-reader a button to send some small sum
(perhaps 25 pence in the UK) to the author.
另一种体系是在阅读器上设置一个按钮以便向作者匿名支付一小笔钱(例如在英国,25 便士可能是合适的)。
Sharing is good, and with digital technology, sharing is easy. (I mean
non-commercial redistribution of exact copies.) So sharing ought to be
legal, and preventing sharing is no excuse to make e-books into
handcuffs for readers. If e-books mean that readers’ freedom must either
increase or decrease, we must demand the increase.
分享是美好的,并且有了数字技术,分享应该变得更容易。(我指对原始版本进行非商业的再分发)因此,分享理应合法,而阻止分享并不能成为将电子书变为读者的数字手铐的理由。如果电子书意味着必须在增进与限制读者自由中二选一,我们必须要求它们增进读者的自由。
<div class="footnote">
------------------------------------------------------------------------
### Footnotes
### [(1)](#DOCF1)
@raggedright 参见 “Why Call It the Swindle?” (@pageref{Swindle}) 以获得更多信息。 @end raggedright
### [(2)](#DOCF2)
@raggedright Ben Quinn, “Man in London Charged with Terrorism Offences over Al-Qaida Document,” 4 April 2012, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/04/al-qaida-terrorism>. @end raggedright
### [(3)](#DOCF3)
@raggedright 参见 “What Is Free Software?” (@pageref{Definition}) 以获知自由软件的完整定义。 @end raggedright
### [(4)](#DOCF4)
@raggedright 参见 <http://gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary.html> 以获知一系列日益增长的威胁。@end raggedright
### [(5)](#DOCF5)
@raggedright 参见我的文章 “Free Software Is Even More Important Now” (@pageref{More Important Now}) 和 “The Problem Is Software Controlled by Its Developer,” 位于 [http://gnu.org/philosophy/the-root-of-this-problem.html] (http://gnu.org/%3Cbr%3Ephilosophy/the-root-of-this-problem.html)以获得更多信息。 @end raggedright
</div>
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