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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

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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.
Samuel Johnson’s words convey the idea that______.
选项 A、chasing wealth is an obstacle to artistic creation
B、it’s contemptible for writers to write for monetary reward
C、writers are fundamentally motivated by an urge to accumulate wealth
D、writers are often insufficiently compensated for their work
答案C
解析 根据题干中人名直接定位到第三段。塞缪尔．约翰逊利用双重否定结构No manbut…except for…(只有傻瓜才不会是为钱而写作)表达肯定观点：作家写作根本上是为了钱。另外，上文(第三段第一句)，开国者旨在利用版权法鼓励艺术家进行创作，随后引用了约翰逊的话语虽然过于夸大，但确保作家能够获得体面的收入确实可以激励他们去创作。可见本段中作者是在肯定合理版权法存在的必要性，约翰逊的说法应该是支持作家对其作品收费。[C]选项正确。
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