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five year term granted in the United States. if the U.S. work for hire term is extended to ninety five years, the term of life plus seventy years granted directors of U.S. films in the EU system would be capped at ninety five years rather than seventy five years. Directors of such films would therefore receive -and the producers who hold their rights would therefore enjoy -up to twenty years more protection in EU member states, depending on the life span of the director.
Consequently, if the U.S. extends its copyright term in accordance with this legislation, some U.S. right holders will be able to collect revenues from the exploitation of their works in Europe for up to an additional 20 years.
The countries of the European Union are a large and affluent market for U.S. copyrighted works. The population of the member states of the EU ever increasing in number - is now nearly 370 million. Moreover, the reach of EU legislation will expand even further in the coming years. Turkey, for example, has just enacted legislation to raise its copyright term for newly-created works to life plus seventy years. It is unlikely that Turkey would have done so were it not for the need to meet the standards of EU protection of intellectual property rights as part of the obligations it took on in concluding a Customs Union agreement with the EU. The countries of east-central Europe are also moving in the direction of harmonizing their legislation with EU standards as they move toward eventual membership in the Community.
Given the preponderant balance in the U.S. favor in US-EU trade in copyrighted works, an additional 20 years of copyright protection on both sides of the Atlantic would add more to the revenue flows headed from the EU to thej^U.S. than it would to the monies we would be required to pay out to Europe. While the Administration has not undertaken the complex process of quantifying the precise extent of these benefits, the Motion Picture Association estimates that term extension would result in a modest increase of revenues from international sources of. less than $1 million per year by 2000, and $3 million per year by 2010, rising more dramatically to $160-200 million by 2020. One of our two major music collecting societies estimates additional international revenues of $14 million per year if U.S. right holders are in a position to take advantage of a further 20 years protection in Europe.
In view of the international benefits to U.S. rights holders as a result of copyright term extension as proposed by HR 98 9, the Office of the United States Trade Representative supports the proposed legislation.