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其次，我们看看外国的成本是多少：

美国最大的音乐著作权集体管理组织：ASCAP

运营费用占版权费收入的比例：11.5% （2007）

——《ASCAP 2008年报》p.8

德国最大的音乐著作权集体管理组织：GEMA

运营成本占版权费收入的比例：13.92 % （2006）

—— GEMA首席执行官Dr. Harald Heker：《2007年会员大会上的讲话》

再次，好吧你可能会说咱们有中国特色，但是中国音乐著作权协会的成本也不高：

管理成本占版权费收入的比例：16.72%（2008）——根据《中国音乐著作权协会2008年报》计算

现在我们再来看看管理AV的CAVCA自己公布的成本：

中国音像著作权集体管理协会

50% ——音集协网站：《中国音像著作权集体管理协会召开会员大会》

为什么音乐著作权协会的成本就那么低，为什么你音集协就非要那么高？仔细观察可以发现，因为音像著作权集体管理的管理结构出现了重大偏移：由非营利性的获得信托==>授权==>收取费用和维权==>分配版税的模式，滑向了投资==>收益适当分配==>再投资==>再收益的盈利模式。

请看CAVCA网站上的解释（《中国音像著作权集体管理协会召开会员大会》）：

为开展卡拉OK经营场所许可收费工作，音集协委托的天合集团公司在全国的30个省、自治区、直辖市建立了子公司，员工总数达到450余人。

这种利用《著作权集体管理条例》所赋予的非营利性集体管理组织的垄断地位，转过头来建立盈利性企业法人管理著作权的行为，当然会推高成本。并且音集协也毫不避讳地将这些内容公开出来，显然也是为了向人们解释其成本为什么高。

几个月前我就写过：

在名为“北京天合文化集团公司”的企业率领下，全国已经形成了一个庞大的营利性卡拉OK收费企业网络，甚至形成某种“卡拉OK版权费市场”的新闻也早已被见诸报端(《21世纪经济报道》2008年9月9日、2008年09月20日)。这种版权许可和收费模式将本应由音像协自己从事的著作权集体管理活动变相出让给盈利性的企业法人，从而令法定的非营利行为转化为企业的经营性行为。且不说版权费中的很大一部分必然被作为企业利润保留，单是纯粹多重转付中的管理成本和多重税收就已很可能抵消了集体管理本应节省下的成本。而这些成本最终都将落到作品的两端——著作权人和真正的作品利用人(卡拉OK消费者) 身上，显然与著作权集体管理机制的初衷相悖。

——董皓：《著作权集体管理不应成为垄断利润的源头》

我一直觉得，在中国现在的环境下，很多事如果你默默地做，旁人也就只能敲敲边鼓，什么批评啊、质疑啊，恐怕主要也就是空气振动一下。现在看来的确是这样。看来，他们已经完全忘记了，天合公司及各子公司的存在，以及天合集团参与到著作权集体管理中来的事实本身，就已经与著作权集体管理的初衷相违背，也与现行法律规定相背离了。

《著作权集体管理条例》

第二条 本条例所称著作权集体管理，是指著作权集体管理组织经权利人授权，集中行使权利人的有关权利并以自己的名义进行的下列活动：
（一）与使用者订立著作权或者与著作权有关的权利许可使用合同（以下简称许可使用合同）；
（二）向使用者收取使用费；
（三）向权利人转付使用费；
（四）进行涉及著作权或者与著作权有关的权利的诉讼、仲裁等。

第六条 除依照本条例规定设立的著作权集体管理组织外，任何组织和个人不得从事著作权集体管理活动。

第四十四条 擅自设立著作权集体管理组织或者分支机构，或者擅自从事著作权集体管理活动的，由国务院著作权管理部门或者民政部门依照职责分工予以取缔，没收违法所得；构成犯罪的，依法追究刑事责任。

国家版权局阎晓宏局长说，著作权集体管理组织须依法开展工作，在一个高度垄断的环境下，非营利性组织变相从事盈利性运作的趋势如果不及时遏制，等到既得利益越来越牢固的时候，相关的改革将更加难上加难。现在是该问问谁是天合集团的股东，它凭什么能行使集体管理职能的时候了。

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2010年2月4日，Cowdroy法官作出判决，认为iiNet从来没有授权其用户进行盗版行为，iiNet没有控制BitTorren，因此也被有责任对BitTorrent系统中的盗版行为承担责，所以，被告不存在侵权行为。法庭强调被告不是依据安全港条款而获得免除责任的待遇，而是本身就不构成侵权。此外，法庭还判决原告承担被告为了这个诉讼而支付的法律成本。

比较全面的案件新闻见这里：
http://www.computerworld.com.au/tag/AFACT%20v%20iiNet

本案的wikipedia页面：
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFACT_v_iiNet

下面是判决书全文：
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2010/24.html

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不过，本文的重点不是掌声，而是大厅里一群永远不鼓掌、不起立的人：

转载请务必注明来自法豆http://www.blawgdog.com

让我们放大一点看：

穿着制服的很好认：军人。他们是美国参谋长联席会议成员——军人不干政，除了有关军队之外的事务，不鼓掌。转载请务必注明来自法豆http://www.blawgdog.com

然后是奥巴马讲席下最正中位置，坐着一群老头老太太。他们是谁？

 他们是美国最高法院的大法官

　　按照惯例，大法官们是不会就演说中的任何内容鼓掌的。因为他们代表国家权力的另一端：司法公正。

 转载请务必注明来自法豆http://www.blawgdog.com

　　今年的国情咨文中，奥巴马总统对最高法院在Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission一案中的判决提出了批评。该案中，最高法院九位法官以5:4做出判决，宣布一项禁止企业直接资助选举的法律违宪。奥巴马说：

With all due deference to separation of powers,” Obama said, “last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that, I believe, will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.”
意译：我完全尊重三权分立，不过我相信，上星期最高法院的判决将打开利益输送的闸门，让包括外国公司在内的利益集团毫无限制地在我们的选举中兴风作浪。（点此到Yutube上看视频，国内朋友点此）

　　奥巴马说完这段话后，全场起立欢呼鼓掌。几位大法官看上去一派老弱病残，但在掌声和人群的暴风骤雨中，我自岿然不动。Alito大法官的嘴角轻轻的抽动，低声说：“No, this is not ture”。用LJR兄的话说：“虽千万人吾往矣，这大概就是真正宪法精神上的司法独立吧。

　　更有意思的是，最近几天，Alito法官的嘴角抽动和奥巴马在国情咨文中对最高法院的批评一起，已经成了众多评论家的文章主题。上面的那句“This is not ture true”就是媒体读Alito的唇后得到的答案。事实上，就如同奥巴马的批评一样，Alito大法官的摇头和说话，也已经触碰了传统，足够平常看起来大大咧咧的美国人当做热点新闻咀嚼一阵子的了。

　　没有宪政的民主基本上很快会变成骚动，没有司法独立的宪政基本上很快会恢复专制。鼓掌与不鼓掌间的细节，以及奥巴马讲席旁的那群老人，或许是这场演讲秀中最值得我们领略的风景吧。

　　点此看奥巴马国情咨文视频和英文讲稿全文，点此到土豆网上看（凤凰台的转播，有简单的同声传译）,点此看讲稿的中文翻译。

[注：关于鼓掌的那些事]

　　掌声和起立致敬是国情咨文演讲的传统风景。这次路透社统计奥巴马获得了八十次掌声。

　　通常而言，有三类情况会获得掌声。一是总统所提到的政策与某些议员的主张一致，则他们就会起立鼓掌——作为民主党员的奥巴马，自然更能得到民主党的青睐。在谈到医疗改革、环保、允许同性恋参军等主张的时候，他轻松地获得了民主党人的热烈掌声。

　　二是能够代表某种普世价值观，可以获得听众高度认可的妙语——例如下面一段话就博得了满堂彩：

正如过去60年来一样，美国将继续采取这些（帮助他国的）措施。这是因为我们的命运是和其他国家联系在一起的，同样也是因为这样做是正确的。这就是为什么当我们在这里集会时，1万多名美国人正在帮助海地人民恢复和重建，这就是为什么我们和渴望上学的阿富汗女孩站在一起，这就是为什么我们支持伊朗妇女上街游行的权利。美国永远站在自由和人类尊严一边。

 

　　三是能够凝聚美国精神、体现人格魅力的语言，也容易获得全场的掌声——例如在为自己的扩张性财政政策辩护的时候，奥巴马以中国和欧洲为例子敲打阻碍立法通过华盛顿政客：

“没有任何理由只有欧洲、中国拥有全球速度最快的高速铁路，或者能生产清洁能源产品的新工厂……我无法接受美国成为二等国家！”

这样的豪言壮语自然也非常能打动骄傲的美国人。

转载请务必注明来自法豆http://www.blawgdog.com

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I am allowed to sit in the course of "Online Law and Business in a Globalized Economy" at Harvard Law School, and get an opportunity to present some understanding to Chinese websites. Because of the limited time slot, I just partly introduced the slides in the class. Therefore, here is a more comprehensive version for those who are interested in.

Hillary Clinton said that "We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas." I love this vision, but it is not a truth of the Internet.

It is untrue not only because the dicky openness of a specific network may be destroyed abruptly (The Internet access in Xinjiang, a northwest region in China three times bigger than Califonia, was simply cut out over 6 months after the mob riot and bloody fight between nationalities), but also because the essence of the Internet: It is inter-net, the Network of Networks. It can be described as an information transmission/communication network composed of many autonomous systems. ARPANET, MILNET, Cyclades (France) and NPL (UK) formed the first generation of the Internet (see the video). More autonomous systems then have been setup and joined the Internet - They joined the Internet by accepting the TCP/IP and other protocols. But this does not mean that they have the same policy on the authority to access and the attitude to the network security.

Similiarly, I name the concept of "Cinternet" to the autonomous network in China.  It could be isolated from the other parts of the Internet infrastructurally, linguistically, politically and even culturally. Recently, the trend of such isolation seems jumped from the level of technological blocking to the level of institutional denying. Contrast to Hillary's vision, this seems to be an existence, no matter "bad" or "good". It is there.

A Video on the History of the Internet can be accessed at here (Youtubecn, can be accessed in China).

Google announced that it will not go on filtering the results of web search because it's E-mail service is attacked. The logic is not that straight forward, but it works at least on emphasizing the not evil slogan. In my view, it is not only the said attacking, but also the anxiety of the culture shock lead Google's activities. Google is still using its American imagination: fight or obedient, agree or disagree.

Let's head back to the business. Google's anxiety in China (as well as Yahoo!'s leaving) may be reasoned by the wrongful understanding to Chinese netizens' demands and surfing usage, which reflect the Chinese culture and social structure.

Let's start from a comparision between Baidu.com and Google.com:

Besides the advantage of focusing on the Chinese search engine, Baidu has the totally differenct philosophy from Google. Baidu runs pay for placement service (if you pay for some keywords, your link will be among the first few items of the search result of those keywords, with an "Ads" symbol), while google earns money mainly from Adsense (An Ads system automatically match the page). Baidu provides PostBar and MP3 dowloading as its killer applications, whereas Google develops its applications around the E-mail service (including Gtalk and Wave), which is the core of the US netizens' online life.

Google can hire people who understand Chinese culture. But with the strong value oriented mission setting atomosphere, Google's headquater obviously often conflicted with its Chinese management team. The result is: Chinese Google (Google.cn) is separated from Google's world, not because of the gov's censorship, but because of the misunderstanding on what is a good, attractive and sustainable web service for Chinese customers.

I wish the following websites may be helpful for understanding the unique enviroment of "Cinternet". The first one is Tianya.cn. Tianya is the most popular and most crowded online forum in China. It's traffic is ranked No. 90 in the world (Alexa).

Tianya's virtual community has a few unique features contributing to its flourish and survival:

(1)  It has a huge group of volunteer forum-board masters who are in charge of deleting/hiding the defamatory, dissenting and - most specially - inappropriate posts. The board masters are mostly the famous IDs (in many cases most of users don't know who the people is in real world), they are famous and reliable only because of their reputation established in Tianya.

(2) The un-deletable and un-editable mechanism. No one can delete/edit his/her own posts at the forum boards, even a board master can only manage the posts at his/her board - as a user in other boards, he can do nothing but posting new threads as a normal user. 

(3) If users think a board master is not appropriate, they may leave the complaint at the manage board - and if those complaints are reasonable, the higher webmaster may decide to suspend the board master's authority - just like the mechanism of "petition" in China's real life.

(4) Look at that strucutre map again. It's "separation of the power" looks very like the actual life in China.

Now this is QQ.com. QQ.com is ranked the world 11th website on the matter of traffics (remember, the traffic among the QQ clients are not counted in). Contrary to Google's matrix based on search engine and E-mail, QQ's world is based on Instant Message. It is a close system, not providing open API.

Taobao is not a Chinese Ebay. On the contrary, Ebay's Chinese branch has been defeated by Taobao. See the above comparision. Alipay, Taobao's payment tool, archieved over 1.2 billion RMB (171 million USD) of the value of transactions per day on Dec 7th 2009, among its over 200 million users.

Named after a spice used in Szechuan cooking, Douban allows Chinese consumers to share, tag and browse through one another's collection of books, music, and movies.

The contents in Douban are mostly user generated. However Douban is distinct from Youtube: only comments to the items (books, movies and music albums) are posted on the website. In each item's page, Douban provides the links to the online bookstores (including Amzon's Chinese site). The prices are easily compared in an item's page.

Douban's biggest distinction from the SNS (like facebook) is: it is not a real-name network. Therefore, it is mainly not for social  and personal networking, but for public expression. Besides the review tab in each item's pages, users can also establish groups and invite others join. There are thousands of groups and thousands of entries are posted every day. Because most users are in anonymous, discussions are very interest-oriented and open-hearted.

If there were no censorship, Douban might be a good platform to form a classic "public sphere". However, douban enforces a very strict self-censorship policy. Any thread that may "threat the operation of douban in China" will be hidden (only the author can read). The groups include too much "in-harmonious" topics will be closed by douban's staff - or be hidden and only the members of the group may read those threads. It is obvious that Douban's operator does not want this websited be involved into any political debate.

The above is a conclusion to the features of successful websites in China. Practcially speaking, these might be useful for those who wish to invest their money and energy into the Internet industry in China.

Back again to the overall abstract discussion, the world might be flatted by emergence of the Internet, but when more and more parts of this convergence of pink, blue, black or bloody world involve themselves into the Internet, the basic feature of the inter-net as a network of various autonomous systems may be at least continue to be a existence, if not a growing trend, in the new decade. And, with all due desire to the open and equal access to the Internet, I still doubt that the vision of a "single" Internet that believe people must love facebook, twitter and Google wave could be a realist approach to archive that aim.

iPad is coming ... Even in the same culture and society, Apple's world can be so distinct from the PC's world (they both connected into the Internet). Imaging how big distinction of the Cinternet's could be.

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1. Douban.com

Douban.com is a unique website that I can not find the counterpart in the English web sphere. It has launched a English site but now suspended.

Named after a spice used in Szechuan cooking, Douban allows Chinese consumers to share, tag and browse through one another's collection of books, music, and movies. Douban has very good infrastructure which provide the aggregation of the users every act (tag a book after read it or just "want to read", write a review, rank a movie ... all the user's acts can be aggregated and published to his/her friends' first page. and each act can be set hidden from the public). According to a user's acts, douban "guesses" the new books, movies and musics for the user, and recommend the user to other users. Douban released a "Douban 9" channel, which is a social aggregator that the users may use it as an RSS reader, but more openly to the others. Recently, douban launched a "Douban Listen" (douban.fm) channel, which is similiar to Pandora.com.

The contents in Douban are mostly user generated. However Douban is distinct from Youtube: only comments to the items (books, movies and music albums) are posted on the website. In each item's page, Douban provides the links to the online bookstores (including Amzon's Chinese site). The prices are easily compared in an item's page.

Douban's biggest distinction from the SNS (like facebook) is: it is not a real-name network. Therefore, it is mainly not for social  and personal networking, but for public expression. Besides the review tab in each item's pages (which are now becoming the most useful resource for Chinese young people's when they are about to watch a movie or buy a book), users can also establish groups and invite others join. There are thousands of groups and thousands of entries are posted every day. Because the groups are established by the users, one may see many interesting ones. Take the keyword of "man" as an example, there are "man-should-cook" group, "we-love-very-old-man" group, "not-answering-phone-man-should-die" group and more than 370 other ones. Because most users are in anonymous, discussions are very interest-oriented and open.

If there were no censorship, Douban might be a good platform to form a classic "public sphere". However, douban enforces a very strict self-censorship policy. Any thread that may "threat the operation of douban in China" will be hidden (only the author can read). The groups include too much "in-harmonious" topics will be closed by douban's staff - or be hidden and only the members of the group may read those threads. It is obvious that Douban's operator does not want this websited be involved into any political debate. 

2. Tianya.cn

Tianya (means skyline) is the most popular and most crowded online forum in China. And as for the number of the threads and the accounts, maybe in the world. It's traffic is ranked No. 90 in the world (Alexa). It is the symbol of the prosperous BBS culture in China

Two mechanisms keep Tianya being survival and flourishing:

One is that it has a huge group of volunteer forum-board masters who are in charge of deleting/hiding the defamatory, dissenting and - most specially - inappropriate posts (means the threads should not be posted in specific forum board, like an essay on travel is posted to a forum boad on the gourmandism). Besides, the board masters also have the right to deny some ID's posting, the right to make a post highlighted, etc. The board masters are mostly the famous IDs (in many cases most of users don't know who the people is in real world), they are famous and reliable only because of their reputation established in Tianya.

The other is the un-deletable and un-editable mechanism. No one can delete/edit his/her own posts at the forum boards, even a board master can only manage the posts at his/her board - as a user in other boards, he can do nothing but posting new threads as a normal user if users think a board master is not appropriate, they may leave the complaint at the manage board - and if those complaints are reasonable, the higher webmaster may decide to suspend the board master's authority - just like the mechanism of "petition" in China's real life.

In Tianya, no one can establish a separate forum/group. All the forums are set by the general webmaster. Users may apply for establishing a new board by posting threads to the "Manage board", but only the website can make a new board. The ecology of Tianya can be described a pyramid one.

Short conclusion:

Neutrally speaking, the different law in various jurisdiction diversified the digital code, as well as the Internet. When a society is digitized, the Internet is also formulized by the law in such society. "Cinternet" is not only a concept of physical "walled part" of the Internet", but may be another "sphere" of the Internet, which isolated from other spheres mentally, systematically, and even institutionally - It's not absolutely a bad thing, or a good one. It may be just an existence.

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　　一、什么是公共领域

　　任何概念都会有不同的表述方式，这里只简单地进行介绍。

　　在著作权法上，“公共领域”（Public Domain，又称公有领域）通常指不在著作权法保护范围内的作品及知识内容。再说地稍微复杂一些，公共领域可以被形容为：

公共领域是特定信息的集合。这些信息可以（在制度上，而非技术上）不被限制地访问和重复使用——之所以不受限制，有两个方面的原因，一是版权法或其它法律并不能控制这些信息，二是相关的权利持有者主动决定放弃自己的权利，从而让这些本居于某种权利限制下的信息获得自由。

　　值得注意的是，这种描述只是为了方便人们理解。人们已经习惯于一个对信息的传播和利用进行限制的世界。因此，这种描述是以“版权法保护下的作品”为参照系，但无论在逻辑上还是历史上，公共领域在先，版权等其它限制公共领域的制度在后。“公共领域”并不依赖于版权法而存在，相反，版权法只是在公共领域中划走一块蛋糕而已。我画了个图：

关于中国著作权法环境下的公共领域，我的论文摘要点这里看。法豆网站上有关公共领域的帖子点这里。

　　二、《公共领域宣言》的内容是什么？

　　首先，《公共领域宣言》明确说明，所谓公共领域内的信息，不仅包括法律未限制其传播的信息，而且还包括尽管法律限制了其传播，但相关权利人放弃了权利的信息。

　　其次，《公共领域宣言》列举了一系列总的观念上的基本原则：

　　第一，公共领域是常态，版权保护是例外——版权法没有包括的内容，就是公共领域的范畴。

　　第二，版权保护期必须适当，而不能以不同的理由被无限期延长，需要在作为公共利益的传播文化与知识与作为对作者的激励的版权保护之间达到平衡。

　　第三，已经处于公共领域中的信息，应当继续被保持在公共领域中，而不应被新的立法所限制传播。

　　第四，合法获取（接触）到了公共领域内的作品的人，就有权利再次使用和传播这些作品，作品载体的所有者无权予以制止。

　　第五，限制接触和利用公共领域内的作品的合同应当无效，限制接触和利用公共领域作品的技术措施不应得到法律的保护。

　　第六，自愿地对版权的弃权行为是正当的，应当得到保护，而不应当以版权是人格权为理由不予承认其效力。

　　第七，现行制度中对版权的限制和例外，例如合理使用制度或合理交易（fair dealing）制度，都应当被予以有效地维持，以确保版权与公共利益之间的基本平衡。

　　再次，在这些原则的基础上，宣言提出九项主张：

　　第一，版权保护期应当被缩短；

　　第二，在考虑对版权保护范围做出任何改变（包括任何新定义的专有权利范围）之前，必须将公共领域的保持考虑在内。

　　第三，如果一个作品在其起源地的版权法制度中已经被认为是在公共领域中，则这个作品应当在世界其它地方也被归入公共领域。

　　第四，法律应惩罚独占或企图独占公共领域资料的行为。

　　第五，不应使用任何别的知识产权制度限制公共领域的资料的利用。

　　第六，必须寻找能使孤儿作品和脱销作品得到充分利用的机制。

　　第七，文化遗产组织应当在标明和保护公共领域资料的工作中发挥特殊作用。

　　第八，对主动将自己作品奉献到公共领域中的行为，不应当设置任何法律上的障碍。

　　第九，个人非商业性使用任何作品的权利应当得到保护，同时应当寻找可以为作者提供替代性报酬的机制。

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