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)

143 citizens only for the United States' shorter term of life plus 50 years, while protecting their own works for life plus 70 years. This might result in depriving United States' authors of 20 years of protection in the international market, eliminating an important source of revenue. Finally, the most frequently used argiunent against the United States in trade negotiations is that we are not in a position to chastise other countries for low levels of copyright protection when our own law does not provide the high level of protection in copyright laws of many western countries, particularly those in the EC. In 1976, various arguments were put forth for extending the term of copjright, including the need to bring U.S. law in line with the laws of similar countries. It was also though that extending the term of copyright would allow the United States to be a leader in international copyright, would discourage retaliatory legislation, and would facilitate international trade. Twenty years later, these points are even more valid. Mr. MOORHEAD. Because we have certainly limited time, I am going to ask our members to be very brief in their questioning and certainly no more than 5 minutes, and that will be enforced. One thing that I wanted to ask, we have a voluntary film labeling program that is working to some extent. The film label in the bill doesn't seem to be satisfactory to many of the others because it is too long. If we would bring representatives of the motion picture association and the various groups that are represented here that are concerned with it together in a hearing room in Washington and let you start the negotiations and see that it is carried out, is it at all possible you could come to terms? You are both making money from the same thing, the sale of the same films, everything else. Is it possible to come to any kind of an agreement on this without having legislation passed that enforces it? We can put it into legislation if you can come to an agreement. But is it possible for you to come to agreement? Any comments on that? Ms. COOLIDGE. We tried. We did. And we couldn't get an5rwhere. Mr. MoORHEAD. Over how long and under what circumstances? Ms. COOLIDGE. There were several meetings. I was in contact with our representatives, but I was not involved in the meetings themselves. But I know that they were very frustrating. And, also, they did not represent everyone involved. In other words, the artists were represented, but all the producers and distributors were not 100 percent represented. Mr. MoORHEAD. Would you give us a list of those people who you think should be involved? Ms. COOLIDGE. Boy, would that be a big list. That is sort of the point I tried to make. One of the points that I tried to make is that this goes on and on and on. It is a giant pyramid of people that it affects. And, second, the producers claimed that they could deliver certain people and they didn't. And, third, we do not represent the nonunion artists who are working in this country. There are a large number of film artists who do not, for whatever reason, either the size or scale of their work, are not members of the unions; and we cannot represent them. So it is a very large issue, to say nothing of the fact that in the end the entire concept, as you can see by our testimony here today of what the label should be, is kind of night and day.