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)

88 digitizing of collections so they can be made available over the Internet. Those would be some of the possibilities. Mr. MOORHEAD. My time has expired. The ranking minority member of the full Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, is here today. He represents a district near Detroit and has been very active in these issues. John Conyers. Mr. Conyers. Thank you. And good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee and my friends on the panel and the ladies and gentlemen of interest who are here in this courthouse this morning. I am so pleased to be, by virtue of being the senior member of Judiciary, a member on all of the subcommittees. And this one is my favorite because it is the most farflung in terms of its operation. In terms of shoring up intellectual property and looking at the international questions, we have gone from Beijing to Xian to Guangzhou to Seoul, but it took us coming to Pasadena to find out that there was a south Pasadena. And not only one Grand Street, but two, which made for an interesting diversion as we roamed the Nation and sometimes the world in terms of these very important intellectual questions. But I am here. And all is well, here. I think this is a tremendous subcommittee and a very important part of the Judiciary Committee. The fact of the matter is that under the new leadership, frequently many of the issues that are subcommittee issues become full committee issues. And so as you look upon us as guardians of American intellectual property, don't forget that we also have to deal with questions of how many automatic weapons should be allowed in the United States of America; what should we do with flag burners, if there are any and if they are conducting their horrible activities; how much damages can be awarded under civil disputes; and then, of course, these great questions of culture that bring us to our subject matter today. Two measures that are actually relatively simple in terms of the issues that are confronting us. I see all of these things moving in the course of a great supporter of our culture and music, in particular, as one who came on the scene when the Vietnam issue was dividing the Nation, when the civil rights movement was nascent and began to build. And there was a young man with Lyndon Johnson named Valenti and a young man with Dr. King named Conyers. And we both wove a web of interrelationships that have spanned some 31 years, as I recall it. And it has been interesting because the basis of all our activity here in this committee is essentially based on a constitutional premise primarily embodied in the first amendment; this thing called freedom of expression, this thing called the right to dissent. And they have come together in a very curious way. And the more I examine the Constitution and the laws of this country, the more I realize that these laws don't just hang out there by themselves. That, in fact, the laws give the framework for people, government leaders, frequently fueled by public opinion, to do things and make decisions within a constitutional framework that have rather large ramifications.