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  3. A recent Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris delivers a slightly changed version of a famous William Faulkner quotation. Faulkne

A recent Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris delivers a slightly changed version of a famous William Faulkner quotation. Faulkne

admin2014-06-25  31
问题     A recent Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris delivers a slightly changed version of a famous William Faulkner quotation. Faulkner himself would likely have been pleased. But his estate sued, arguing, absurdly, that using the quote was a copyright violation. Also last week, the Supreme Court heard a copyright case that could make it illegal to resell books, even household objects without the permission of the manufacturer.
    Copyright has been getting out of control for some time, but the Faulkner lawsuit and the Supreme Court case show just how bad things are getting. If the Courts and Congress do not put a halt to this expansion, copyright owners will be able to lock up more and more intellectual property.
    The nation’s founders put protection of copyright in the Constitution because they rightly saw it as a way to encourage artists and scientists to create. Samuel Johnson may have been overstating things when he said "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. " But ensuring that authors are decently paid for their work certainly encourages them to create.
    The trouble is, copyright owners have gotten far too assertive about promoting their rights. The Faulkner estate’s suit is an example of copyright holders’ increasing willingness to sue over even minor uses of their work. Copyright law allows for "fair use"— it allows people to use parts of copyrighted books under certain circumstances, including when the amount of the work used is not excessive and it is being put to a creative or scholarly use. The Woody Allen quote should clearly be protected as fair use. If it is not, artists will have to be much more careful when they make even glancing references to the work of other artists. That would be troubling because much art builds on what came before it. Faulkner did this as much as anyone.
    The case the Supreme Court heard last week poses a challenge to the "first sale" doctrine, which lets people who buy copyrighted items to resell them as they wish. The publisher John Wiley & Sons argues that the doctrine does not apply to goods made overseas — and that if the defendant in the case wanted to sell the books in the U. S. , he had to get its permission first. If John Wiley & Sons wins the case and copyright law is read too broadly, it could make it difficult for American consumers to resell all sorts of foreign-made goods.
    It is fashionable in some circles these days to argue that "information wants to be free" and that copyright should be radically rolled back or eliminated. That goes too far — it benefits all of society if creative people are fairly compensated. But even if information does not want to be free, it should not be as expensive as the Faulkner estate and John Wiley & Sons would like to make it.
Which of the following would most likely happen if John Wiley & Sons wins the case?
选项 A、The sales of foreign-made goods in the U. S drops dramatically.
B、Secondhand goods market shrinks by a large margin.
C、The "first sale" doctrine becomes invalid.
D、Purchasing pirated goods becomes a popular practice.
答案B
解析 原文对John Wiley&Sons诉讼案的论述集中在第五段。由该段可知，假若该公司胜诉，则会使得人们无法在美国境内随意转售海外生产的商品。由“难于转售(difficult…to resell)”可推出选项[B]正确。
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