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531
Comments Regarding HR 989 Copyright Term Extension
Statement of Daniel Abraham
Graphic Artists Guild National Vice-President for
Legislation
before the
Subcommittee on courts and Intellectual Property
House Judiciary Committee
II WEST 20 ST EIGHTH FLOOR NEW YORK. NY. I 0 0 I I ' 3 7 0 4 "\
(JI2) 4t3-7730
^
(212) 4«3-8779
The Graphic Artists Guild is pleased to add its voice in favor of extending the copyright term twenty years, to seventy years beyond the life of the creator. The Guild is a national artists' advocacy organization, with a membership composed primarily of individual authors who create copyrighted material for publication, broadcast and manufacture.
The life plus seventy copyright term is already in place in the European community. But as overseas protection is extended to American copyright holders only for the duration of our domestic copyright term, a twenty-year extension of the domestic term is necessary to assure the fullest worldwide return on American creativity.
The proposed legislation raises these questions:
1) Who should receive windfall profits from the extension of subsisting copyrights?
2) Should the term be extended on works made for hire?
1) Windfall Profits in Subsisting Copyrights.
As drafted, HR 989 will add twenty years to subsisting copyrights, automatically extending current contractual arrangements. This creates a windfall for licensees and commercial rightsholders at the expense of the creative community. Rather than extending the status quo for another generation, extension legislation should automatically terminate extant contracts at the end of a work's original copyright term, with all rights reverting to the heirs of the original creator. The heirs will then have the opportunity to sell or license rights based upon existing market value, and not be forced to acquiesce in the extension of existing commercial arrangements by Congressional fiat.
At the heart of American copyright law is a contractual relationship; creators license their work to publishers.