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Information wants to be free. That observation, first made in 1984, anticipated the internet and the world to come. It cost nothing to digitally reproduce data and words, and so we have them in numbing abundance.
信息应该是免费的。这一观点最早在1984年提出，预见了互联网和未来世界的到来。以数字方式复制数据和文字不需要花费任何费用，因此我们有浩如烟海的信息。
Information also wants to be expensive. The right information at the right time can save a life, make a fortune, topple a government. Good information takes time and effort and money to produce.
信息也应该是昂贵的。在正确的时间提供正确的信息可以挽救生命、赚得大量财富、推翻一个政府。优质信息需要花费时间、精力和金钱来产生。
Before it turned brutally divisive, before it alarmed librarians, even before the lawyers were unleashed, the latest battle between free and expensive information started with a charitable gesture.
在引起巨大分歧之前，在惊动了图书管理员之前，甚至在让律师出动之前，最近的免费信息与昂贵信息之争始于一种公益举动。
Brewster Kahle runs the Internet Archive, a venerable tech nonprofit. In that miserable, frightening first month of the Covid pandemic, he had the notion to try to help students, researchers and general readers.
布鲁斯特·卡利是互联网档案馆的主理人，互联网档案馆是一个受人敬重的科技非营利性组织。在新冠疫情暴发的那个悲惨而可怕的第一个月里，他想要帮助学生、研究人员和普通读者。
He unveiled the National Emergency Library, a vast trove of digital books mostly unavailable elsewhere, and made access to it a breeze.
于是他推出了国家紧急图书馆，这是一个巨大的电子书宝库，许多书在其他地方几乎找不到，而且他使访问这些电子书变得非常容易。
This good deed backfired spectacularly. Four publishers claimed "willful mass copyright infringement" and sued. They won. On Friday, the publishers said through their trade association that they had negotiated a deal with the archive that would remove all their copyright books from the site.
这件善事反而带来了巨大的灾难。四家出版商声称这是"大规模蓄意侵犯版权"，并提起诉讼，结果他们赢了。周五，出版商通过行业协会表示，他们已经与档案馆谈判并达成了一项协议，所有的版权图书将从网站上删除。
Maria Pallante, chief executive of the Association of American Publishers, said: "The proposed judgment is an appropriately serious bookend to the court's decisive finding of liability. We feel very good about it."
美国出版商协会首席执行官玛丽亚·帕兰特表示："拟议判决是对法院做出的决定性责任裁决的一个恰当且严肃的补充。我们对此感到非常高兴。"
The archive had a muted response, saying that it expected there would be changes to its lending program but that their full scope was unknown. There is also an undisclosed financial payment if the archive loses on appeal.
档案馆对此未做出明确回应，表示预计其借书项目将会发生变化，但具体范围尚不清楚。如果档案馆在上诉中败诉，那么它还需要支付一笔赔款，具体情况未披露。
The case has generated a great deal of bitterness, and the deal, which requires court approval, is likely to generate more. Each side accuses the other of bad faith, and calls its opponents well-funded zealots who won't listen to reason and want to destroy the culture.
此案引发了巨大的怨愤，档案馆和出版商的协议需要法庭批准，协议也可能会引发更多怨愤。双方都指责对方不守信用，并称对方是资金雄厚的狂热分子，不讲道理，想要摧毁文化。
In the middle of this mess are writers, whose job is to produce the books that contain much of the world's best information. Despite that central role, they are largely powerless -- a familiar position for most writers.
处于混乱之中的是作家，他们的工作是写出包含世界上最优质信息的书籍。尽管作家扮演着这一核心角色，他们在很大程度上仍然势单力薄，这是大多数作家常见的处境。
It's rarely this nasty, but free vs. expensive is a struggle that plays out continuously against all forms of media and entertainment. Neither side has the upper hand forever, even if it sometimes seems it might.
免费与昂贵之争很少会变得如此激烈，但所有形式的媒体和娱乐都在不断上演着这种斗争。没有哪一方能永远占据上风，即使有时候似乎看起来如此。
Stewart Brand is the technology visionary who first developed the formulation. He said: "The more information is free, the more opportunities for it to be collected, refined, packaged and made expensive. The more it is expensive, the more workarounds to make it free. It's a paradox. Each side makes the other true."
斯图尔特·布兰德最先阐述了"免费vs昂贵"的观点，是一个有远见的技术者。他说："免费的信息越多，信息被收集、提炼、包装和变成昂贵产品的机会就越多。信息越昂贵，寻找免费信息的变通办法就越多。这是一个悖论。每一方都使另一方成立。"
