Motion Picture Commission : hearings before the Committee on Education, House of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress, second session, on bills to establish a Federal Motion Picture Commission (1978)

138 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. I desire to call attention to section S of the bill, which reads as ioUows : Sec. 8. That the coininissinn may. if it has licensed a tihn. issue a seal aud certificate for each duplicate thereof without an examination of such duplicate, upon the payment of the license fee hereinafter i)rovided. This section leaves it to the discretion of the commission to omit the inspection of duplicate films. The commission Avill undoubtedly do this in the case of all trustworthy manufacturers. But it wotild seem to increase the efficiency of the enforcement of the law to permit the commission, in case the need arose, to require that in certain cases duplicate films should be inspected before a certificate and seal was granted. It also seems wise for the commission to have it within its discre- tion either to furnish the seal and the certificate, rather than to allow manufacturers as a whole to do so for their own duplicates. But the wording of section 8 is such that the commission may. when it grants a license for an original, write a permission for the manu- facturer to furnish his own seal and certificate, or it may decide to authorize manufacturers generally to issue true copies of the original seal and certificate. In this connection section 10 should be read, which requires that no film shall be carried from one State into another " unless a true copy of the certificate accompanies it." In response to the question concerning the wisdom of omitting &,ny fee for the license of any duplicate film. I desire to call attention to section IT: Sec 17. That three months after the commission has I>e.trun to license motion l>ictures, and at any time thereafter, the commission shall have power to reduce the fees to such a sum as will iiroduce no larger income than is necessary to pay the entire cost of the commission, including salaries and all other expenses. This section is necessary, because it is impossible to determine even approximately the number of original or duplicate films that will be issued in the coming years. Even if the motion ]iicture commission should decide in their dis- cretion to ]iermit the manufacturei'. as expressly ]n-ovided in section 6. to attach true copies of the original seal, to the duplicates, it is wise that the true copies of the seal be furnished by the commission; also, that the commission keep some record of the number of dupli- cates issued. These measures seem necessary as precautions against, forgery, unless the commission decides to retain a duplicate copy of each film licensed by them. The oO-cent fee charged for each duplicate may be large enough to include the expense of furnishing the motion picture film seal, Avhich, requiring at least 5 feet of film, would probably cost over 20 cents. But, in addition to this, it seems fairer that a larger share of the expenses of the commission shall be paid by the manufacturer who uses a large number of duplicates rather than by the manufacturer who only produces one original and issues few duplicates. The manufacturer who gets a large income from the interstate commerce du])licate films ought .justly to be expected to pay a larger share of the expense of the Government in licensing the films than the one who derives a much smaller income.