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  3. The idea that government should regulate intellectual property through copyrights and patents is relatively recent in human hist

The idea that government should regulate intellectual property through copyrights and patents is relatively recent in human hist

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问题    The idea that government should regulate intellectual property through copyrights and patents is relatively recent in human history, and the precise details of what intellectual property is protected for how long vary across nations and occasionally change. There are two standard sociological justifications for patents or copyrights : they reward creators for their labor, and they encourage greater creativity. Both of these are empirical claims that can be tested scientifically and could be false in some realms.
   Consider music. Star performers existed before the 20th century, such as Franz Liszt and Niccolo Paganini, but mass media produced a celebrity system promoting a few stars whose music was not necessarily the best or most diverse. Copyright provides protection for distribution companies and for a few celebrities, thereby helping to support the industry as currently defined, but it may actually harm the majority of performers. This is comparable to Anatole France’s famous irony, " The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges. " In theory, copyright covers the creations of celebrities and obscurities e-qually, but only major distribution companies have the resources to defend their property rights in court. In a sense, this is quite fair, because nobody wants to steal unpopular music, but by supporting the property rights of celebrities, copyright strengthens them as a class in contrast to anonymous musicians.
   Internet music file sharing has become a significant factor in the social lives of children, who download bootleg music tracks for their own use and to give as gifts to friends. If we are to believe one recent poll done by a marketing firm rather than social scientists, 48 of American Internet users aged 12 to 17 had downloaded music files in the past month. In so doing, they violate copyright laws, and criminologists would hypothesize they thereby learn contempt for laws in general. A poll by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that two-thirds of an estimated 35 million Americans who download music files do not care whether they are copyrighted. Thus, on the level of families, ending copyright could be morally as well as economically advantageous. On a much higher level, however, the culture-exporting nations (notably the United States) could stand to lose, although we cannot really predict the net balance of costs and benefits in the absence of proper research. We do not presently have good cross national data on file sharing or a well-developed theoretical framework to guide research on whether copyright protection supports cultural imperialism versus enhancing the positions of diverse cultures in the global marketplace.
   It will not be easy to test such hypotheses, and extensive economic research has not conclusively answered the question of whether the patent system really promotes innovation. We will need many careful, sharp-focus studies of well-formed hypotheses in specific industries and sectors of life. For example, observational and interview research can uncover the factors that really promote cultural innovation among artists of various kinds and determine the actual consequences for children of Internet peer-to-peer file sharing.
Free Internet music file sharing may bring about all of the following consequences EXCEPT______.
选项 A、losses to culture-importing nations
B、the dominance of one culture
C、people’s disrespect for laws
D、the degradation of one’s morality
答案B
解析 事实细节题。根据Internet music file sharing可定位于文章第三段。第三段第六句提到，从更高层次来看，结束版权法可能让文化输出国失利，因此一种文化占据主导地位会变得很困难，[B]项的可能性不大，故为答案。根据常识可推断，没有版权保护，外国文化会大量涌人文化输入国，对本国文化形成冲击，[A]项表述是可能的后果之一，故排除。第三句提到，孩子们在免费下载网络音乐的同时已经违反了版权法，并且犯罪学家推测，他们由此学会蔑视法律，[C]项的表述属于免费网络音乐分享带来的后果，故排除。第五句提到，结束版权法在道德上和经济上都是有利的，但人们不需要再有尊重版权的意识，也可能导致人们道德观念的滑坡，[D]项表述也可能是后果之一，故排除。
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