New Book: The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle

The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind, by James Boyle.

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2008
Hardcover: 336 pages
ISBN-10: 0300137400
ISBN-13: 978-0300137408

In this enlightening book James Boyle describes what he calls the range wars of the information age—today’s heated battles over intellectual property. Boyle argues that just as every informed citizen needs to know at least something about the environment or civil rights, every citizen should also understand intellectual property law. Why? Because intellectual property rights mark out the ground rules of the information society, and today’s policies are unbalanced, unsupported by evidence, and often detrimental to cultural access, free speech, digital creativity, and scientific innovation.

Boyle identifies as a major problem the widespread failure to understand the importance of the public domain—the realm of material that everyone is free to use and share without permission or fee. The public domain is as vital to innovation and culture as the realm of material protected by intellectual property rights, he asserts, and he calls for a movement akin to the environmental movement to preserve it. With a clear analysis of issues ranging from Jefferson’s philosophy of innovation to musical sampling, synthetic biology and Internet file sharing, this timely book brings a positive new perspective to important cultural and legal debates. If we continue to enclose the “commons of the mind,” Boyle argues, we will all be the poorer.

James Boyle is William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law. He lives in Chapel Hill, NC.

REVIEWS

“Boyle has been the godfather of the Free Culture Movement since his extraordinary book, Shamans, Software, and Spleens set the framework for the field a decade ago. In this beautifully written and subtly argued book, Boyle has succeeded in resetting that framework, and beginning the work in the next stage of this field. The Public Domain is absolutely crucial to understanding where the debate has been, and where it will go. And Boyle’s work continues to be at the center of that debate.”—Lawrence Lessig, C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith Professor of Law, Stanford Law School and author of Free Culture and The Future of Ideas

“In this delightful volume, Professor Boyle gives the reader a masterful tour of the intellectual property wars, the fight over who will control the information age, pointing the way toward the promise—and peril—of the future. A must read for both beginner and expert alike!”—Jimmy Wales, founder, Wikipedia

“Boyle is one of the world’s major thinkers on the centrality of the public domain to the production of knowledge and culture. He offers a comprehensive and biting critique of where our copyright and patent policy has gone, and prescriptions for how we can begin to rebalance our law and practice. It is the first book I would give to anyone who wants to understand the causes, consequences, and solutions in the debates over copyrights, patents, and the public domain of the past decade and a half.”—Yochai Benkler, Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies, Harvard Law School and author of The Wealth of Networks

New Book: Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig

Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, by Lawrence Lessig

Penguin Press, 2008
Hardcover: 352 pages
ISBN-10: 1594201722
ISBN-13: 978-1594201721

The author of Free Culture shows how we harm our children—and almost anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art form—with a restrictive copyright system driven by corporate interests. Lessig reveals the solutions to this impasse offered by a collaborative yet profitable “hybrid economy”.

Lawrence Lessig, the reigning authority on intellectual property in the Internet age, spotlights the newest and possibly the most harmful culture war—a war waged against our kids and others who create and consume art. America’s copyright laws have ceased to perform their original, beneficial role: protecting artists’ creations while allowing them to build on previous creative works. In fact, our system now criminalizes those very actions.

For many, new technologies have made it irresistible to flout these unreasonable and ultimately untenable laws. Some of today’s most talented artists are felons, and so are our kids, who see no reason why they shouldn’t do what their computers and the Web let them do, from burning a copyrighted CD for a friend to “biting” riffs from films, videos, songs, etc and making new art from them.

Criminalizing our children and others is exactly what our society should not do, and Lessig shows how we can and must end this conflict—a war as ill conceived and unwinnable as the war on drugs. By embracing “read-write culture,” which allows its users to create art as readily as they consume it, we can ensure that creators get the support—artistic, commercial, and ethical—that they deserve and need. Indeed, we can already see glimmers of a new hybrid economy that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy” evident in such Web sites as Wikipedia and YouTube. The hybrid economy will become ever more prominent in every creative realm—from news to music—and Lessig shows how we can and should use it to benefit those who make and consume culture.

Remix is an urgent, eloquent plea to end a war that harms our children and other intrepid creative users of new technologies. It also offers an inspiring vision of the post-war world where enormous opportunities await those who view art as a resource to be shared openly rather than a commodity to be hoarded.

About the Author

Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the School’s Center for Internet and Society. He is the author of Free Culture, The Future of Ideas, and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, and is a columnist at Wired. He chairs the Creative Commons project and has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation’s Freedom Award. He was named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries and has also been listed as one of BusinessWeek’s “eBiz 25,” the magazine’s roundup of the twenty-five most influential people in electronic business, several times.

高峰枫：西塞罗的愤怒

　　西塞罗（Marcus Tullius Cicero,106 BC - 43 BC）是古罗马一代文宗，其著作涉及面极广，既有打官司的讼词，也有哲学、政治学和宗教领域的著述，更不要说彼得拉克在1345年发现的那几百封书信了。若对古罗马文史缺乏了解，对西塞罗雕琢、繁复的文风没有体会，那么翻译（translate）西塞罗很容易成为对他的“侵害”（transgress）。买到汉译本《西塞罗全集》第一卷《修辞学卷》时，我便替译者捏一把汗，待看了译文之后，我早已被惊出好几身的冷汗了。

　　译者翻译所用底本，是“洛布古典丛书”（Loeb Classical Library）的英译本。他沿用英译本的做法，把Ad Herennium（译者翻作《论公共演讲的理论》）列为第一篇。译者在“内容提要”中说：“本书是否西塞罗本人的作品在西方学界一直存有争论，但主导性的意见仍视之为西塞罗的著作。”可是据我所知，“主导性的意见”刚好相反。据考证，Ad Herennium 约作于公元前一世纪初期，是现存拉丁文献中最早的关于修辞学的系统论著。在中世纪以前，这部书的抄本大多将西塞罗题为作者。但是自十五世纪开始，人文主义学者瓦拉（Lorenzo Valla,1407-1457）便开始质疑西塞罗是否真的是此书作者，并且当时已有其他学者将此书排除在西塞罗作品之外。这样一代代研究考证下来，只要您随便翻阅几部研究古罗马修辞学的著作，从英国学者Atkins的《古代文学批评》第二卷（1934年），到加拿大学者Grube的《希腊罗马批评家》（1965年），再到意大利学者Conte的《拉丁文学史》（英译本1994年）和美国学者George Kennedy的《古典修辞学史新编》（1994年），没有一位将这部书归在西塞罗名下。译者也许无暇翻阅这些基本参考书，可是就在他依据的“洛布古典丛书”英译本中，英译者Caplan在英译者序里明明说过“虽然以西塞罗为作者的观点仍不时出现，但近来所有的编校者均以此说为谬”，“此书作者问题不时引起学者讨论，但从未获得最终解决，也从未让所有人满意。我以为，最明智的做法，是将此书归于一佚名作家笔下……”译者只要认真看过这篇英译者序的前三页，我想他绝对不会说出“但主导性的意见仍视之为西塞罗的著作”这样不负责任的话来。　　
　　
　　西方古典修辞学有很多基本术语。比如按照“演说”（oratory）的主题和功能，一般将“演说辞”分为三大类：第一类是“庭议”（deliberative），专门讨论军国大事，比如宣战、媾和、立法等等；第二类是“诉讼”（judicial或forensic），用于在法庭上控告他人，或者为当事人辩护。第三类是“赞咏”（epideictic），服务于讴歌君主和颂扬英烈。当西塞罗将这三个修辞学基本术语放在一起讨论时，译者尚能知其差别，勉强翻出大意。而一旦它们在文章中“落单”，译者一下子就双目迷离，辨认不出了。比如第150页，forensic单独出现了，身边没有 deliberative 和 epideictic “相伴”，译者忘记其义当为“诉讼”，三次将它译成“辩论性”。又如第170页，出现了一个 deliberative style，这本来是议论国事所应使用的文体，而译者却译作“演讲术的精致文风”，估计是将deliberative往deliberate（深思熟虑）的方向上理解去了。对修辞学基本术语不熟悉、不敏感，却勇于翻译古罗马修辞学巨擘的鸿文，正好比不懂悲剧和史诗的基本差别，就胆敢翻译亚里士多德的《诗学》一样。

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苏力主编：《法律和社会科学》第二卷

《法律和社会科学》(Law and Social Science)第二卷
主办：北京大学比较法和法律社会学研究所，北京大学法律经济学研究中心
主编：苏力
法律出版社，2007。244页。定价：33元。当当购买；卓越购买。

目录

编者按语

[评论]
心理学对法律研究的介入／戴 昕／l

[论文]
走向什么司法模型?——“宋鱼水经验”的理论分析／刘 星／50
人民陪审员制度的多面向解释／胡 凌／103
明清日用类书中的法律知识变迁／尤陈俊／128
明清以来的中表婚及其禁止／张丽丽／151

[报告]
水木清华BBS纠纷解决机制的变迁／罗玲／188
水木社区BBS的纠纷解决机制——3•16事件之后／李睿／218

» 继续阅读 苏力主编：《法律和社会科学》第二卷 全文

高鸿钧：《哈贝马斯、现代性与法》译后记

[美]马修·德夫林编：《哈贝马斯、现代性与法》，高鸿钧译，清华大学出版社，2008。定价25圆。

内容简介

本书是论述哈贝马斯政治哲学和法学理论的权威性著作，内容涉及交往行为理论对于法学理论发展的重大贡献，现代社会法律的正当性基础，民主与法治的关系，以及商谈论理学视域中的人权等重要议题。作者均是研究哈贝马斯理论的国际名家。他们从不同学科和不同视角阐释了哈贝马斯的政治哲学和法学理论，既指出了其中的重大贡献，也对哈氏的某些观点进行了商榷并提出了质疑。这些讨论、对话和商榷不仅有助于读者深化对于哈贝马斯法学理论的理解，而且有助于推进这种理论的改进和发展。

本书是具有深度的法哲学和法社会学著作，适合于大专院校和研究机构的政治哲学和法学理论研究者，也适合于对法哲学、法社会学以及政治哲学饶有兴趣的一般读者。

目 录

中译者导言： 通过民主和法治获得解放————高鸿钧

第一章 导论：哈贝马斯交往行为理论之法————[美]德夫林
第二章 有效之法如何可能？——评哈贝马斯的《在事实与规范之间》————[美]拉斯穆森
第三章 通过哈贝马斯交往行为的概念探讨法律的生产————[葡] 古本提夫
第四章 商谈伦理学与刑事诉讼中的人权————[荷]巴尔
第五章 法律和政治理论的重构————[德]彼得斯
第六章 《在事实与规范之间》后记————[德]哈贝马斯

参考文献
索引
译后记————高鸿钧

译后记

翻译即便是一种创作，也不过是转换性创作，毕竟不同于原始性创作。因而，原著的作者才具有“亲娘”的地位，而译者至多不过扮演“保姆”的角色。这对于那些青灯黄卷不辞劳苦的译者来说，未免有些不公，在译作不算成果而撰著易于迻译的当下中国学界，似乎尤其如此。于是，译者便有些不甘和不服，遂不避佛头着粪之责和狗尾续貂之讥，在译著正文之外加上不痛不痒的“导言”或不三不四的“后记”。这虽然常常误导读者，但毕竟可以为自己争得个“后妈”名分，终不至于沦为 “保姆”一族。译者这篇译者导言和后记大抵也出于为正当“后妈”而斗争吧。

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