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)

293 benefit from the extension and that the general public itself would receive no compensating benefits. Once the errors in the argtmients for increasing the term have been exposed, the real reason for the legislation becomes clear: The maintenance of royalty revenues from those relatively few works from the 1920's and 1930's that continue to have significant economic value today. The continued payment of these royalties is a wealth transfer from the United States public to current owners of these copyrights. These copyright owners are in most cases large companies and in any case may not be descendants of the original authors whose works created the revenue streams that started flowing many years ago. To our knowledge, no one has made a study of just how great this wealth transfer would be, although it is clearly large enough to generate fervent support for the proposed legislation by performing rights societies, film studios, and other copyright owners in economically valuable works whose copyrights are otherwise due to expire in the next few years. The works about to enter the public domain, absent this legislation, were created in 1920. At that time and for many years thereafter, society's "bargain" with the actual authors was a period of exclusive rights under copyright for a maximum of 56 years. Those authors produced and published their works with the understanding that the works would enter the public domain 56 years later. Yet, notwithstanding that bargain, the period was extended by 19 years in 1976 to 75 years, as were the terms of all copyrights acquired after 1920. Now, 19 years later, these same copyright owners have remmed seeking yet another extension to continue the wealth transfer for another 20 years, without supplying any evidence, or even any arguments, that the public will benefit. This wealth transfer from the United States general public to copyright owners is, moreover, only a part-probably a small part—of the total cost that we and coming generations will bear if the extension is adopted. It is important to remember that the extension would apply to foreign as well as United States works. Therefore, in order to maintain a flow of revenue to the owners of United States copyrights, the general public will continue to pay on foreign copyrights from the 1920's whose terms must also be extended. No one has shown that there will even be a net international inflow of royalties from the works at issue. Even worse, to maintain the royalty revenues on those few works from this period that have continued economic viability, the copyrights must be extended on all works. This includes letters, manuscripts, forgotten films and music, out-of-print books, and much more, all potential sources on which current authors and scholars can base new works. Copyrights can and usually do have very complicated multiple ownership so many years after an author's death. The transaction costs of negotiating for use can be prohibitively high, even for works that no longer have economic value. None of the arguments for extension take into consideration the loss to both revenue and culture represented by the abseiKe of new popular works that are not created because underlying works that would have served as a foundation remain under the control of Written Testimony of Intellectual Property Professors Page 2