Copyright term, film labeling, and film preservation legislation : hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session, on H.R. 989, H.R. 1248, and H.R. 1734 ... June 1 and July 13, 1995 (1996)

Record Details:

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82 -5 would make publishers three years worse off than they had been in under the 1909 Act's 28-year original term. Before a panel of experts convened by the Copyright Office, Mr. Abeles said: [t]oday there are so few songs of any one publisher that have potential. The publisher has to employ all possible ways and means, including substantial expenditure, to promote them. The competition is drastic today, and few [songs] ever become popular standards. If you are going to terminate the rights after 25 years, you are going to put the legitimate publishers out of business, because they must live on those few popular standards. It is the income from those popular standards he receives that places him in a position where he can exploit new compositions. Such a provision would mean the death knell of the industry. I ask, why this radical curtailment of existing rights, instead of participation in the extension of such rights. [Emphasis added.] Today, I ask the same question. Why extend the duration of copyright protection without an equitable extension of the statutory limit on the duration of transfers? Following Mr. Abeles appeal, the preliminary draft of the Act was amended to provide for termination of transfers after 35 years, and, in fact, that is period now codified in section 203. Congress recognized then that extended term warranted an extended period in which publishers could recoup their investments in the creative process and in the promotion of works. What Mr. Abeles noted more than 30 years ago is no less true today: that many works - and the investments in those works - never show a profit. Given the rich variety of music available to the American public, few think about it, but for every song that becomes a hit, hundreds - maybe more - go unnoticed.