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)

413 And what is happening is that I find that you fellows keep harping on our conscience and sense of fairness and where all this is going, and it's a little bit disturbing. I mean, this party was just about sealed, signed, and delivered, and now we've got to go in and try to untangle your arguments of fairness and conscience. We're going to put a big job, a big responsibility on this committee; I can tell you that. I don't know how we're going to be able to handle it. And I am, frankly, worried. Maybe we need to go back into this. Now I'm a late bloomer to the subcommittee, and I'm a late member of the major sponsors on the bill here, and you're creating some awful problems. You've raised issues here. I mean, couldn't you have just submitted your testimony in writing maybe and we would have filed it away and it would have been put in — Bill, you know where they go in the Judiciary Committee. [Laughter.! And we would have written you letters back thanking you very much, and we'd be having lunch about now and I wouldn't be having to decline to recognize my dear colleague from Ohio. So, I mean, what — who are you guys really? I mean, what's your purpose here today? I mean, are you going to set the intellectual property industry on its ears with this kind of talk going on in this room? Are you going to turn away the trade balance that we've carefully nurtured through the film industry and others? I mean, it's one of the few things we can hold up with pride. So what's happening? Mr. Patry. Mr. Conyers, I think the fixes to this bill are very easy. You give the cop3n'ight directly to the author. The Constitution and public policy says you give it to authors, I'd say it's a rather sad day when we have to entertain the thought, however amusingly, that we're going to set the system on its head by protecting the very people the Constitution says should be benefited. Everyone gets up and you have wonderful testimony about how great creators are and how we love everyone's music, and I do, too, but guess what? When it gets down to dividing up the money, we're going to say the sanctity of a contract written in 1930 means a lot more than what the Constitution says, and what good public policy dictated in 1995. I think if you're going to say, "Oh, no, we're not going to take the time to do what's the right thing to do," then that's a big problem. Mr. Conyers. Professor Karjala. Mr. Karjala. Thank you. I think I agree with Bill Patry on this question insofar as this bill is being presented as it's a benefit to authors. It isn't. And if you want to benefit authors from the twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties, you should follow his suggestion. But, more generally, I would suggest that in doing so we not turn intellectual property law on its head. I'm suggesting that we keep what has worked so very well in the past. We have a very successful balance between private and public interests, between the payment to past authors and the encouragement to future authors, and we want to make sure we don't upset that balance. I'm sympathetic to the views we heard from Mr. Jones this morning, and if we can find a way to ameliorate some of the bad effects of those contracts written in those years, I would certainly be happy to consider it, but what I seriously worry about, the hin 23-267 96-14