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)

144 Mr. Eves. Mr. Chairman, the view the coaHtion takes and the view our organization takes, is that there is a vast difference between a Government-mandated label and a voluntary label. I think it would be difficult to point to very many programs that exist today that have achieved a 90-percent compliance rate, as has this labeling program in barely 20 months that it has been in existence. Directly to your question, I think that there clearly has been a responsiveness on the part of the motion picture industry to the concerns that have been raised here, and this is why a labeling program was developed. Now, people will quarrel over the precise language, but certainly we are willing, and I know the MPAA is willing, to sit down and continue discussions to see if we can come to some agreement on that; and we are very willing to do it. We certainly do not want to see a disparaging label that is harmful for our business and would seem to be designed to tell people that the product that they are buying is an inferior kind of product, and we have concerns about that. One of the points that was made in the testimony a few minutes ago was that the labeling program that we have in existence right now has not created any economic hardship on the industry. I agree completely with that point; but that is because it is a clear, unambiguous, informative label without taking an arbitrary or a disparaging kind of position with regard to the film. As to your question, we are certainly willing to do that. Mr. MOORHEAD. That voluntary label, if it were mandatory, is that something that would be satisfactory to you? Ms. COOLIDGE. No. Because although he may say it is unambiguous, we disagree. I don't think it is clear. It is not a clear label, and it is not unambiguous. For example, what does edited for content imply? If what it implies is true, meaning that it has sex and violence removed, that is actually not even involved in this bill. That editing is something that we do as part of our contract when we deliver a film made for motion pictures to a television screen. So that isn't even a part of it. Second, formatted for your television screen. That sounds like the companies are doing the consumer a favor rather than removing 50 percent of the image from the picture. So we do have a very different opinion about how does the cinematographer or director feel about having 50 percent of the image removed from the picture. Mr. MoORHEAD. Would you be willing to sit down one more time and see if some linguists among the group can come up with something that could be agreed to by everybody? Ms. COOLIDGE. Well, I have to tell you, Mr. Chairman, that we have been — this request has been made to us several times; and we did sit down one more time and one more time and one more time again. So I don't know how to further answer you. Well — I mean, the problem is we know what the problems are. We know that the producers, when we sit down and discuss together, will not consider the idea of the creative authors having an objection. We know that. There doesn't seem to be any way around it. And the authors, on the other hand, are extremely emphatic in their concern for having the opportunity to make this objection.