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)

113 And, with that, I won't take up any more of your time. Thank you very much. Mr. MooRHEAD. Mr. Eves. STATEMENT OF JEFFREY P. EVES, PRESIDENT, VIDEO SOFTWARE DEALERS ASSOCIATION, ON BEHALF OF THE COMMITTEE FOR AMERICA'S COPYRIGHT COMMUNITY Mr. Eves. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Jeffrey Eves. I am president of the Video Software Dealers Association, an international trade association for the home video entertainment industry. VSDA's 3,000 member companies represent some 20,000 video stores and provide more than 500,000 jobs nationwide, and I appreciate the opportunity to share our views with you on this important matter this morning. I am here this morning on the behalf of the Committee for America's Copyright Community. We are a group of industries that work together to protect the flourishing U.S. copyright system from socalled moral rights legislation. We believe moral rights laws, such as the film labeling legislation that you are considering today, would disrupt a legal regime that is working well for copyright owners, for distributors, for American consumers and for the U.S. economy. Today I will focus my remarks on the film labeling bill and its impact on the people that I represent, the men and women who manage and run tens of thousands of stores where American consumers rent and purchase prerecorded movies on videocassette. Mr. Chairman, the American consumers vote with their pocketbooks every day. They have made home video their No. 1 leisure time activity and their top choice for viewing movies. Last year, American consumers spent $14.5 billion renting and buying videos, almost three times what was spent to acquire and purchase movie theater tickets. In fact, each week over 60 million people in the United States visit a video store — 60 million people a week. You are all probably familiar with the typical video store. As you know, it is an environment that lends itself to conversation. People discuss whether a movie was good or bad, whether an actor was right for the role, whether the movie was as good as the book. I can assure you that you will not hear debates on the issue of film to video adaptation, which is the essence of the moral rights dispute raised by some members of the creative community. Consumers love the low cost, variety, and convenience offered by home video; and they know the experience of watching a movie in their living rooms is different from watching it in a darkened theater. Consumers do not need a warning label to tell them that, and video dealers do not need a disparaging label that seems to discourage renters from renting and buying movies on video. I do not mean to take an5rthing away from the creative geniuses that are involved in the movie-making process. In fact, in response to concerns raised by proponents of this legislation, the motion picture industry adopted a voluntary film labeling program in 1993. The voluntary program, which calls for labeling of both the video and the video package, has been a great success. In fact, we recently reviewed the top 40 video rentals listed in the May 13th edi