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)

145 I would like to point out, though, something that I think is obvious, and I hate to say the obvious. This example of a worst possible scenario label is almost laughable. Who would put a product out with this gigantic label on it? Most films would hardly have any label on them at all. Most films, particularly that go into the video market on a videocassette, are not altered. The most common alteration that is done would be panning and scanning. That would be the only common label, and you don't know if it would have an objection. It might not. It depends on the author. But a situation in which a film has had, let's say, 20 minutes taken out plus they have lexiconned it, which is almost ridiculous, why would you speed up the film if you are cutting out a huge amount of it? Say you lexicon it to speed it up plus you cut out 20 minutes plus you colorize it. The idea of doing that many alterations on it — I have to say that I would argue with you that maybe such a radically altered version is an inferior product and maybe it ought to have a label so that the purchaser of this film would know that their favorite scene in that movie may not be there. But, anyway, most films out there today with this voluntary labeling situation are not labeled. First of all, syndicated films do not have labels. Releases prior to 1993 do not have labels. There are tens of thousands of movies out there that are not labeled under this voluntary labeling system, which we consider to be inadequate because it doesn't reach all the distributors and it is an inadequate label. Mr. MooRHEAD. Thank you. Mr. Conyers. Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't know who was supposed to enforce the time against the chairman. It is not important, because we are all here because of the compelling, important nature of this subject. Let me just throw out a few questions. Throw back a few responses. Write to me. This matter will not be ultimately disposed of today. And I loved Mr. Weller's testimony. I think most people appreciated it. But why don't you tell your son about the Constitution? It isn't just laws that we flip around. The Constitution, article one, says that we shall limit it. And that is where we get to Brother Bono. If you are saying you want a constitutional amendment, great. Somebody — I am sure there are people around that will want to do that. What I would like to do is to find out — we know what kind of labels we don't want. I would like to see the kind of label we do want in this subject matter. And I don't think it is accurate to say that this is a solution in search of a problem. You have been negotiating, Mr. Eves. You couldn't have been negotiating about a nonproblem. This is not only a problem, it is a big problem. And I approach this with great interest and concern. I am not sure why we do need two labels instead of one. I think it is important to consider the fact that this moral rights discussion deriving from French law is very important. I think — I don't think we need to adopt it in its whole entirety, but I don't think that it is subject to being dismissed out of hand. I mean, they have parliamentarians and people who know legal theory just as we do, and I am interested in pursuing it some more.