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)

96 are fortunate and happy to sell a few hundred copies. So we are talking about an infinitesimal amount in the marketplace. The fact is, Mr. Berman, that a picture that is in public domain, unless it is a unique thing, like "It's a Wonderful Life", which of the 500,000 films on deposit at the Library of Congress, stands out singularly, nobody invests money to enhance that film. Beethoven is different. I presume you can put out some sheet music on Beethoven or make a copy of the Beethoven symphony. But when you are mucking around with a negative on which you have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on that negative and knock off the prints on that, too, you are talking about a sizable investment and, therefore, few people are willing to make it. That is why some of these public domain prints become so haggard after a while. I have seen some "It's a Wonderful Life" renditions on television that I think it is a disgrace to put on the air, with lines across it and the print is in a debilitated form. Mr. Murphy. Mr. Berman, two examples that come to mind about the public domain and its value — what it means. When you think of what happens in the Soviet Union or in any country where there is absolutely no control over copyrighted works, you don't have any products available, be it classical music or anything. People will not invest where there is no stability or no copyright base. Where the copyright base is there and there is protection for copyright, people are willing to invest and they make the products available. It is truly that simple. I was president of G. Schirmer Music Co. before I came to head up NMPA and the Harry Fox Agency and G. Schirmer was the leader in the world in producing classical music and educational music. And in our repertoire we had a lot of classical music and we had a great deal of difficulty competing with China and the Philippines and places where they would produce product and ship it on into the United States from Asia where it was cheaper to manufacture, so we didn't do it. What we did do is things that were copyrighted and often the copyrighted works are what actually carried our expenses to put out works which we wanted to have for a full repertoire. So you would bring the classical music out, but also hopefully get some royalties from other works from ASCAP and BMI from some of our composers. Mr. Berman. Let me make sure I understand how the whole copyright law works. When Toscanini conducts and some record company records a Beethoven symphony which is in the public domain, is that Toscanini recording conducting the New York Philharmonic in a Beethoven symphony, is that a copyrightable record? Mr. Murphy. No, sir. No, it is not copyrightable. You may — Mr. Berman. Somewhere, a record company over and over and over again has decided that notwithstanding, that it is not protected, notwithstanding that there is value in going out Mr. Murphy. Have you copyrighted "Circle P," that is a copyrightable work as a phonogram. "Circle C," — ^the music itself— is not copyrightable unless you do an arrangement of that work, there may be rearrangements of a public domain classical work which