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)

156 of the copyright in the country of origin. Once this directive is implemented, United States works will only be granted copyright protection for the shorter life plus 50-year term before falling into the public domain in Europe, whereas all of the others will continue on for the 70 years. The main reasons for this extension of term are fairness and economics. If the Congress does not extend to Americans the same copyright protection afforded their counterparts, American creators will have 20 years less protection than their European counterparts— 20 years during which Europeans will not be paying Americans for their copyrighted works. Europeans buy more works of American artists than they do of any other country's nationals. Any imbalance would be harmful to the country and work a hardship on American creators. I would like to be introduced — to introduce our ranking member at this time, but all of us are having two or three markups or hearings this morning all going on at the same time. I have two markups going on right now, plus this hearing, and I know Howard Herman and Mrs. Schroeder and Barney Frank and many of the other members have the same problem. I will now introduce Jim Sensenbrenner. Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This subcommittee has important work to do, and this bill is an important issue that is before the subcommittee. We've had a number of hearings on copyright and patent legislation, and I expect that the subcommittee will take action on much of this legislation. There is one piece of legislation, however, that hasn't had any action, and that's H.R. 789, which relates to background music and licensing fees that have to be paid by owners of retail establishments. That's just as important as this legislation is, and there have been some negotiations that have been going on between parties on both sides of the issue. Another negotiation session is scheduled for July 28, a little bit more than 2 weeks from now. Let me say that the first two negotiation sessions have gotten nowhere in terms of resolving the problem of retailers having to pay licensing fees for having the radio on or having the television on. I will not look at this bill favorably unless there is some legislative action on H.R. 789 or something similar to it, because leaving the music licensing fee issue the way it is now in the passage of this bill will simply allow the licensure organizations like ASCAP and BMI to harass retailers for another 20 years. I don't think that that's acceptable. It is not acceptable to the one-quarter of the House of Representatives that have cosponsored H.R. 789, and it seems to me that this issue has to be dealt with as a package. And I thank the chairman for giving me this time. Mr. MOORHEAD. Our ranking minority member of the full Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, is here. John. Mr. Conyers. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I'm just trying to get the import of my colleague from Wisconsin's remarks as I came in. I guess this is what they call in the music business a tie-in. You don't get one without the other. What I want to do is look at his bill, though, and find out what the other is, and I'm sure I'll have a reaction to it. I don't know how happy I'll be,