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)

517 STATEMENT OF JUDITH M. SAFFER ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL BROADCAST MUSIC, INC. ON H.R. 989, COPYRIGHT TERM EXTENSION ACT OF 1995 BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY Legislation has been introduced in both the House and the Senate whose purpose is to extend the term of copyrigbt in the United States by proyiding for an additional twenty-year term of protection for copyrighted works. The primary provision would extend the term of copyright to life of the author plus 70 years. The proposed legislation is based on the belief that if works copyrighted in the United States are to be properly protected intematiooally, our term of copyright must coincide with the term of copyright being granted in the European Community ("EX!'^ and many other countries. It isn't necessary to outline in detail the many reasons why the current term of copyright is inadequate. I respectfully refer the Committee to the excellent comments submitted by the Coalition of Creators and Copyright Owners to the Copyright Office in 1993, and to the statemoits presented by the witnesses speaking for the Copyri^t Coalition at today's hearing. On behalf of the composers, songwriters and music publishers represented by BMI, I would like to stress that extaiding the term of copyright will help further the goieral purpose of the copyright law to encourage creativity and protect the rights of authors. In the geno^ revision of the Copyright Act of 1976, there was a recognition that copyrighted works should receive protection for the life of the author plus an additional 50 years. At that time. Congress recognized that the prevailing international standard of protection should be adopted by the United States, because it was believed that this extoided protection would hdp foster creativity, which ultimately enures to the benefit of everyone, not just the antbor. In addition, there is no doubt that there are significant economic benefits to be obtained by extending the tmn o( copyright. We are all aware that the demand for United States' copyrighted materials transcoids political boundaries and that all kinds of American intdlectual propoty such as music are exceeding^ popular throughout the world. Foreign payments for works of American authorship far exceed American payments for works of foreign authors. Many estimate that United States' copyrighted rdated industries account for more than 5% of the gross national product and return a trade surplus of billions of dollars. However, a significant amount of this revenue could be put in jeopardy because of the principal referred to as "the rule of the shorter term", which provides that if the duration of protection in a foreign state is shorter than a member state, that membo' state may limit the protection it gives to works of the foreign state's nationals, to the latter's shorter copyright term. According, countries could protect works of United States' citizens only for the United States' shn-ter term of life plus 50 years, while protecting their own works for life plus 70 years. This might result in depriving United States' authors of 20 years of protection in the intamational market, eliminating an important source of revenue. Finally, the most frequently used argumoit against the United States in trade negotiations is that we are not in a postion to chastise other countries for low levds of copyri^it protection idien our own law does not provide the high level of protection contained in copyright laws of many western countries, particularly those in the EC. In 1976, various arguments woe put forth for extending the torn of copyrig^ including the need to bring U.S. law in line with the laws of similar countries. It was also thought that extending the term of copyright would aDow the United States to be a leader in international copyright, would discourage r^aliatory legislation, and would facilitate intonational trade. Twenty years later, these points are even more valid.