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)

314 agers wrote, "Why Do Fools Fall In Love," he was 12 years old when he signed that contract, and his record company producer got himself listed as a coauthor of the song, even though he wasn't, so that he could get 50 percent of the author's share of the publishing royalties. Mr. Hendrix in his letter wrote to you about how he had spent years of litigation to try and get the fair economic benefits of his son's royalties. The point I'm making is not intended to disparage the music industry. It's a great industry. I'm not saying that any of these practices are current practices. Hopefully, they're not; I assume that they're not, but the past is relevant. It's not beating up on the music industry. The part is relevant because this bill statutorily enforces contracts from the forties, fifties, and sixties, and I think it's a fair question to ask whether you really want to do that. Mr. Bono at the Pasadena hearing observed that 99 percent of the songwriters or their families would want their copyright back, if you asked them. Of course: what songwriter is going to say, "Oh, no, don't give me that 20 years back; give it to the music publisher. That contract I wrote in the forties or fifties, sure, it only gave me $200 or 1 percent of the royalties, but that's OK; I don't need the money." Mr. Jones referred to many jazz musicians who make a living off of three or four songs. Well, they're not going to make much of a living if they have to live off of contracts from the forties or fifties. Why shouldn't they get the copyright back and to be able to negotiate what the fair market value is right now? The Copyright Office in its written statement I think takes a very similar position. They said, "On balance, it seems that authors should be the beneficiaries of the longer term." That's what the Constitution says, by the way. It says Congress has the power to grant copyright to authors, not to purchasers of copyright: to authors. Mr. Chairman, I want to note two very important drafting problems. Even if you decide against vesting the copyright in the author— and that's my very strong recommendation — ^for works published between 1920 and 1933, and for which a termination of transfer notice hasn't been filed, the way the bill works these people can't get their copj^^ight back because their time for terminating has past. In other words. Congress said in 1976 we're going to give you an extra 19 years and you can get it back if you ask. Well, guess what? These authors from 1920 to 1933, who Mr. Lehman pointed out were from a very important era, they can't get the new 20 years back because the time limits have passed. And that inability is deliberate. At the Pasadena hearing there was a question from Mr. Becerra about this, and the answer was, "Oh, well, the author would have terminated if the work is commercially valuable." That's kind of a silly answer I think because, if the work is commercially valuable for the publisher, how come it isn't commercially valuable for the songwriter? Of course it is. Ms. Peters also referred to the lack of termination notices; there haven't been very many. Of course, there haven't been many. It's incredibly complicated. In my written statement, I set out about six or seven pages of the history of this provision of the law and the technical details of it. Unfortunately, in our country we haven't