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)

87 ema industries in Europe, which Europeans will tell you, somewhat unhappily, is in decline. I spent the last week meeting with European producers on how to revitalize the European cinema. Whereas the American system of works for hire is confirmably and singularly the most successful in all the world. Therefore, I don't think there is any rational person that would want to inflict a system on this country that doesn't seem to work an3rwhere else in the world. But under copyright, the Europeans are bound to protect us. We are a member of Berne. We joined in 1989. I wanted us to join a lot earlier. But we are a member of Berne and therefore we are accorded the protection of Berne. And if this copyright term extension is granted, as I pray it will by the Congress, then we will be on equal footing because as I said in my opening statement, the Europeans are bound only by Berne, which is life of the author plus 50 years or 70 years, and they do not have any requirement to protect beyond that, though they do have the right to lift their own copyright extension far beyond Berne as they have done. So all we are asking very simply, this thing shouldn't be too complicated. This is an economic issue, Mr. Chairman. It is a crucial and pivotal economic issue. And that is we must match the Europeans, else we are at a severe disadvantage. It is very simple. And I am not going to try to complicate it by giving you any arcane theories. Mr. MOORHEAD. I have a question here for either Mr. Richmond or Mr. Murphy. Would you describe the types of film archives and film preservation activities which might be eligible for the foundation, how numerous are they and where are they located? Mr. Richmond. In terms of how numerous they are, there are archives of all sizes and descriptions. One of the strengths of the American archival community is that we do not have one national archive. The national collection, so to speak, is held by literally hundreds of repositories throughout the country, which are geographically dispersed and philosophically diverse. The types of activities that could be funded by the foundation, I can imagine, several. Certainly the funds to preserve and restore archival collections that are held in nonprofit institutions that have historical or cultural importance. Funds to catalog collections so that information about them can be made available to the public. Obviously, the public can't have effective access to this heritage of theirs if they do not know what is there. One of the major new shifts in film preservation community is the emphasis on storage. It is no longer simply a question of preserving a film by doing laboratory work. We recognize now the films have to be stored under very good temperature and humidity control in order to make sure that they can last as long as possible. So I could certainly see this foundation working cooperatively with others to help try to establish regional storage repositories where many archives from a region could place their collections under archival conditions. I think one of the big areas would be trying to make the American film heritage more accessible to people by cataloging is one way, and the striking of reference prints and access copies. And even for collections that are of special educational interest, the