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)

232 works were brought back out of the pubUc domain as a part of the NAFTA agreement. I think that there is an evolving consensus in U.S. society on a bipartisan basis that marketplace solutions are preferable to Government regulation and bootstrap schemes for accomplishing larger social purposes. To the extent that you can provide an economic incentive for the preservation and dissemination of works, you're on pretty solid ground, and, of course, that's why the copyright law and intellectual property is such a magnificent thing. Getting back to the earlier question by, I believe, Mr. Hoke, about when should copjright expire, this is an evolved law but many of the decisions that were made were very arbitrary. One of the things that is now being talked about on an international basis in connection with the new global information infrastructure and the digital highway and has been floated by our Japanese trading partners, is the idea that perhaps there ought to be some kind of new intellectual property right specifically for people who take something which even might be in the public domain, and then revive it, digitize it. Obviously, it would only be in their particular digitized version of it, but give them some incentive for taking something and adding value to it, so that it can be made available to people. This is something that is being talked about. Certainly, to the extent that copyright provides an economic incentive for people to rerelease works, it's an advantage of this bill. Mr. MOORHEAD. You state that the grant of copyright term extension may encourage copyright owners to restore and digitize works that are about to fall in the public domain. Mr. Lehman. That's correct. Mr. MoORHEAD. As Chairman of the administration's Task Force on Information Infrastructure, do you believe that this bill would encourage copyright owners to add to the content which will be available to the Internet? Mr. Lehman. Yes, I do. Mr. MoORHEAD. I know this problem of money has been discussed here several times and the questions that are asked — I think one of the big problems that we run into here is the fact that copyrighted works in other parts of the world are being protected beyond the term limits of our copyright, and, yet, our own people will be shortchanged in that respect as far as use in other parts of the world. To protect those has to be totally a plus for our country and no negatives whatsoever because, to the extent that it brings in additional revenues, additional taxable income, and so forth, regardless of whether it's small or large, will be a plus for us. True? Ms. Peters. Can I just say one thing? Mr. MOORHEAD. Yes. Ms. Peters. I agree, and I support this bill wholeheartedly. There is a cost, though, in the United States. By adding 20 years in the United States, then people have to pay in the United States. So although I support it, and agree that we would be getting additional revenue from the foreign countries of the European Union, there is an impact in the United States itself. Mr. MOORHEAD. Well, I have no further questions. I don't — does any member of the panel have an additional question?