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The Honorable Carlos Moorhead Chairman, House Subcommittee on Courts
and Intellectual Property House Committee on the Judiciary Room B-351A Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Chairman Moorhead:
As the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property considers H.R. 989, the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1995, I ask that you please amend the bill to cure a serious, and no doubt unintended defect: the bill does not give the new 20 years of copyright to authors and songwriters. Instead, it gives the copyright to publishers. My son, Jimi Hendrix, was guite young when he signed contracts with record companies and music publishers. He did not understand copyright law and did not have experience in the business aspects of the music business. Sometimes, especially when he was first starting out, he was not even represented by a manager or lawyer. I have had to spend a great deal of money in lawsuits and years of my life trying to receive the proper royalties from Jimi's publishers and record companies.
Jimi's experience is not unusual; many musicians have not had the opportunity of being educated about copyright law, yet, their livelihood and that of their families depends on copyright. Music publishers and record companies, however, employ lawyers who do understand copyright law and who write the contracts that musicians such as Jimi are forced to sign. I'm not asking you to rewrite old contracts, but I do think it is only fair that if Congress is going to provide a new 20 year term of copyright that music publishers and record companies should have to pay songwriters what the value of the copyright is right now, and not what it was decades ago.
In order for songwriters or their families to be able to receive the value of the new 20 years, though, the bill must be changed so that the new copyright is given only to the songwriter or his family. Right now, the bill gives the copyright to the publishers and the record companies and forces the songwriters and their families to live with a contract that was written many years ago, at a time, in Jimi's case when he was in his early 20s and was not represented by anyone who could look out for his interests.
Mr. Chairman, I know you would not want such an unfair result. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely yours, Al Hendrix