In August 1955, Congress authorized the formation of a Panel of Consultants on General Revision of the Copyright Law under the ela.rasap of the register of copyrights, and the Copyright Office undertook a series of basic studies of the major substantive issues involved in revision.

At the same time began what has become a seemingly endless series of meetings and discussions with representatives of virtually every interest group affected by the copyright law.

By now these discussions, which have been as valuable as they have been time consuming, must literally run into the thousands, and they are st..l going on.

Le study phase of the current revision program begin almost exutly 20 years ago, in 1955. It was supposed to take 3 years, but it took about 6. It produced 55 fairly comprehensive studies covering most of what we thought at the time were the substantive issues in copyright rev «,on.

were published, together with a large body of comments from the Panel of Cons uitants, and I am proud to sy that they are all still

in pr.at.

Le can nation of tlas effort was the publication, in 1961, of the 14 Report of t. e Regter of Copyrights on General Rev: on of the Copyright Law. The Rei ster's report was the prst of many major fredons to the general teva ion program by Abrabata L. KaminMr. Fisher's successor as Register of Copyrigts. The purpo-e of the reports, as Mr. Kuninstein said in his 1962 annual report: W to fur-h a tangible core around which opiii nw a ad conch, jets con'd to acurve tie wide † poss,lle agreemeat on basic principles before Braves, og to draft a revised cops ruht law."

report attempted to pinpoint the major issues in revision, the pre nt law with respect to each of them, analyze alterfat veslators, and present spec.fic recommendations

Te loger's report succeeded very well in clar.fying the issues won 15g the discussions on them, but some of its most fun'as pertal room cordations proved more controversial than anyone in the Copyrig0lce had expected.

In part war, the Reger's proposal for copyright to begin with sta fataan" a: d to last for a hist term of 2 year

second term of 48 years, provo'd a dhol of of posit on; barre was strange support for å sig'e Federal copyr at system with protect of cotanto atg upon the creation of a work and credag (5) 3-as after tie a it or seat..

ow of muret e as of the Panel of Consiltan's on Ger »ra! Revi**on of the Regter wrebatt, was lot between 11, and March 12, at was all of the report's recome ted sysad n an increasingly for se atrostoure

tel arg inerts at t.es and of her fact t ́es motiva ly stalled at for several mot iw and bron fit to a fin 'a'e supp. † ar 1 fail of 1962. It becara aj parent that, if te project were not to fou det, stie method for a ly yet p ga'terra' ve ricomin er da' • law Won Í'ave to be found. In oter wor de, ti e Copyright Ohe had to tron der its por ton.

the e

In November 1962, the Register announced that the Copyright Office was prepared to change its position on some debatable questions and to draft alternative language on others. He indicated that the Office was prepared to revise its recommendations concerning "pubie dissemination" and the retention of common law protection, and that, "at least one alternative version of our draft bill will adopt the lifeplus basis for computing the term-in conjunction with a system of notice, deposit, and registration that we consider essential."

The Register also announced that he would send preliminary drafts of statutory language to the members of an expanded Panel of Consultants on General Revision for their comments, and that he would convene another series of meetings on the preliminary draft.

The process of preparing draft language for circulation occupied practically all of 1963, and included a total of eight meetings of the Panel of Consultants.

The development of this preliminary draft proved to be a difficult but enormously productive phase of the program. The procedure adopted provided a motive and a forum for detailed, critical scrutiny of the language and substance of a new copyright statute by representatives of nearly all of the groups affected.

It also created an atmosphere of cooperative effort that has survived various stresses and strains and has continued to grow in breadth and depth.

The preliminary draft of the general revision bill, that had reached completion at the beginning of 1964, was never intended to be a final product. The next 6 months were devoted to compiling, analyzing, and synthesizing all of the comments received on the draft, to making substantive decisions and changes on the basis of these comments, and to preparing a complete, section-by-section revision of the bill. The draft of the bill that emerged from this process was prepared entirely within the Copyright Office without collaboration or consultation with any private groups or individuals involved. The introduction of the 1964 draft in July 1964, marked the end of the drafting phase of the revision program and the opening of the legislative phase.

Like the preliminary draft on which it was based, the 1964 L'I was not intended as a finished product, but as a focal point for further comments and suggestions. In August 1964, a full week of detailed dussions of the bill showed that a great deal of progress had been

de, but that still further revisions would be necessary before legistive hearings could profitably begin.

During the fall and winter of 1964 65, the Copyright Office reviewed and analyzed the many oral and written comments on the bill and prared another con plete revision.

At the beginning of the Soth Congress, on February 4, 1965, Representative Celler introduced the 1965 General Revision b'l ard the Copyright Ofe spent the next 3 months preparing a supplement to ↑ a 1961 Register's Report, The supplement iry resort of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law: 1905 Revision b'll which was published in May 1965, set forth the reasons for changing a number of recommen 1ations in the 1901 ronwort and clarified the meaning of the provisions of the 1965 bill. plication of the supplementary report conded with the open

g of congressional hearings on the bill. Over a period of more than 3nths, between May 26, 1965 and September 2, 1965, 22 days of

c hearings were held before your subcommittee, under the ob ..e and dedicated chairmanship of the man who is still your a.rman, Robert W. Kastenmeier.

A total of 165 witnesses, representing an extraordinarily wide range of ple and private interests, appeared to testify. The record of 1963 hearings comprises nearly 2,000 pages of printed text, ng not only the oral transcript but also more than 150 written The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee under the chairmanship of Jn M. Clellan of Arkansas, held brief hearings on the Revis.on

n August 1965, but delayed a full series pending the conclusion fte intense activity in the House subcommittee.

Several signifi ant factors with respect to the general revision *"gram emerged from the 1965 hearings, Most obvious were the ip controversies remaining to be settled on some old issu}{m

as the jukebox exemption, the royalty rate to be paid under the sory hense for recording music, and the manufa turing rents with respect to English language books and periodicals aon some relatively new issues such as fair use, and the reprodue

of copyrighted works for educational and research purposes, ety of educational broadcasters and similar transmitters, ite status of commaaty anten a television systems under the gt law.

A». te from the reed to work out farther accommodations on sev

al issues, the mot serious problem arising from the 1905 g was how to organize the mx sive contents of the record sa way that would overlook no sigui ant comment or suggestion at still would form a compre', 1's 'de ha is for de ssor n aking av a personal word about thow 31 days of subcom",tice meetce they were very significat.

Wing in close collaboration, the Copyriglt 0o, e and the Horse ry Coruña thee cour sel prepare 1 umu ar es of every states kad ben rule, and t'en divided the entire corty of the »to 19 general areae Sil ot matter of convrig' t, cater on, roti e mrd rv strat on, manufactur te TAYLOR fa, copinut ty antenna systems and of' er s

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tion of the bill as they went along, the subcommittee produced an entirely revised bill in an atmosphere of informal, bipartisan discussions that could well serve as a model for similar legislative projects. The bill, as revised by the subcommittee, was reported unanimously to the full House Judiciary Committee on September 21, 1966, and was reported without amendment by the full Judiciary Committee on October 12, 1966.

The House report still remains the basic legislative explanation of the content of the bill, and the reports succeeding it in both Houses have all been drawn from it.

The bill was reported too late in the 89th Congress for further legislative action, and indeed, none had been expected in 1966. In the revised form reported by the House, it was introduced by Representative Celler in the 90th Congress, and was considered by the newly constituted membership of Subcommittee No. 3, again chaired by Representative Kastenmeier, on February 20, 24, and 27, 1967.

It was reported to the full committee on the last of these dates, and, after rather heated debates in the full committee on February 28 and March 2, 1967, was again reported to the House.

This time, however, the report included minority views by Representatives Byron G. Rogers of Colorado and Basil L. Whitener of North Carolina, devoted to the jukebox issue, and additional dissent by Mr. Whitener on the bill's treatment of CATV.

It was becoming increasingly apparent, as the bill moved toward the House floor, that extremely sharp and unreconciled conflicts on the issues of jukebox performance and CATV transmissions remained, and that there was a serious danger that one or both of these issues could defeat the bill.

The bill was considered by the House Rules Committee on March 8, 1967, and the rather acrimonious arguments in the committee before it took action authorizing full debate on the House floor were another danger signal.

The debates of the bill in the House of Representatives on April 6, 1967, were difficult and protracted, to say the least. When the House finally recessed after 7 p.m., it was apparent that a rescue operation was essential. Over the next 4 days, in an atmosphere of intense crisis, several crucial compromises were achieved, and on Tuesday, April 11, 1967, an amended bill was passed by the House after mild debate with the extraordinary vote of 379 yeas to 29 nays.

Fairly radical changes were made in three areas: There were drastic revisions in the provisions establishing copyright liability for jukebox performances; the provisions dealing with community antenna transmission were dropped entirely and the exemptions for instructional broadcasting were considerably broadened. On the other hand, the structure and content of the bill itself has remained substantially intact.

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, which had opened hearings in 1965, and had had a short series of hearings on the CATV problem in 1966, resumed full-scale consideration of the bill, under the joint chairmanship of Senators McClellan and Burdick, on March 15,

1967.

Indeed, the Senate hearings were in full swing during the crisis in the House, and for a time the general revision program resembled a

two-ring circus in more ways than one. To everyone's surprise the record of the Senate hearings, which lasted 10 days and ended on April 28, 1967, very nearly equals that of the House hearings in size and content.

Of the several areas that emerged as fullblown issues at the Senate hearings, by far the most important is the problem of the use of copyrighted works in automated information storage and retrieval systems. This problem was addressed separately in the context of the creation of a National Commission on New Technological Uses which Congress enacted as separate legislation only last year, and which is still awaiting stafling from the White House.

Meanwhile, as the 1967 legislative momentum began to slow more and more, it was increasingly apparent that cable television had become the make-or-break issue for copyright revision. Although the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee worked long and hard between 1968 and 1970 to resolve controversies over a number of issues other than cable, and succeeded in reporting the revised bill to the full Senate Judiciary Committee during the 91st Congress, it was not able to push revision any further.

An effort spearheaded by the Copyright Office to gain enactment of a "barebones" bill, containing everything except the cable section. and other controversial provisions dealing with economic rights, also failed for tactical reasons.

By 1971, it was apparent that the bill was completely stymied over the CATV issue, and even the issuance of comprehensive FCC rules in 1972, governing the carriage of signals and programing by cable sy-tems, failed to break the impasse.

Because of this long delay, Congress has passed a series of successive bills extending the term of expiring copyrights. These now run through the end of the current Congress, and are scheduled to expireon December 31, 1976. The urgent problem of tape piracy was also taken care of through separate legislation.

A total of 7 years passed between House passage of the bill in 1967 and the resumption of its active consideration in the Senate subcommittee last year.

There may have been other reasons, but certainly the most immediate cause of the Revision bill's new momentum was the Supreme Court's decision in CBS v. Teleprompter, in March 1974, holding that under the 1909 statute, cable systems are not liable for copyright infringement when they import distant signals.

The decision was followed quickly by favorable actions in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee and full committee and, after a brief referral to the Commerce Committee, by passage in the Senate on September 9, 1975, by a vote of 70 to 1.

In late November, your subcommittee held a hearing which, in one respect, was a forerunner of these hearings. I testified in an optimistic vein at that time, and I remain hopeful that at long last the entire revision measure will be enacted into law during the current Congress.

Mr. Chairman, this is the end of my prepared statement, but I would also like to identify seven or perhaps eight issues which will certainly come before you. I am preparing what I hope will be a second supplementary report of the register of copyrights which will be

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