FOREIGN TRADE

Trade with foreign countries has always gripped the Nation's interest; and the value of imports and exports has been recorded for every year since 1789. The Bureau of the Census has prepared these statistics since 1941. The Bureau gets foreign trade data from documents which, by law, importers and exporters are required to file with collectors of customs. These reports, therefore, are used for both administrative and statistical purposes. From the statements of exporters and importers, the Bureau compiles statistics and makes them available through a number of publications. Each month it issues two reports on exports—one giving the statistics for each commodity by country of destination and the other giving them for each country by commodity. Similarly, it issues two reports on imports-one emphasizing the commodity and the other the country of origin.

Summary reports are also prepared each month. One shows trade by commodity, one by country, and one by customs district. Another is concerned with bunker oil and coal laden in the United States on vessels engaged in foreign trade.

Reports are also issued regularly on trade with U.S. possessions and on trade in gold and silver. Separate shipping statistics are compiled to show airborne and waterborne commerce.

Facts on foreign trade make an absorbing chapter in any account of the Nation's activity. Of special interest are the facts on the merchandise trade balance, which affects the U.S. balance of payments. In 1963, the United States had a favorable balance in merchandise trade of $5.1 billion-the difference between exports of $22.3 billion (excluding Department of Defense shipments) and imports of $17.2 billion.

The leading types of commodities exported in 1963 were machinery, transport equipment, food, and live animals. Canada was our best customer. Exports to that country in 1963 were worth about 21⁄2 times as much as those to Japan, which ranked second. The United Kingdom and West Germany ranked third and fourth.

In 1963, the leading types of commodities imported were manufactured goods, food, live animals, and inedible crude materials (except fuels). Canada was not only our best customer but also our best supplier. Other leading suppliers were Japan, the United Kingdom, West Germany, and Venezuela.

Mr. POFF. Mr. Chairman. In further explanation of this, and in the event that you discover that you really have very little responsibility in this area, but can acquire the information readily there from those who do have that responsibility, I am sure we would be glad to accept your information as secondhand information for the record. Mr. GILES. All right, sir.

Mr. POFF. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Mr. Hutchinson?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I have no questions of Mr. Giles. I think your statement has been very helpful, and your suggestions for amendment certainly merit the consideration of the committee.

The only line of questioning that I did want to pursue was the line that my colleague, Mr. Poff, undertook with regard to section 111, and I think that has been adequately covered.

Thank you very much."

Mr. KASTENMEIER. The committee thanks both Mr. Giles and Mr. Stephenson for appearing this morning.

Mr. GILES. Thank you, sir.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Our last witness this morning is Prof. Melville B. Nimmer, from the School of Law, University of California, a recognized expert in the field. You are most welcome to the committee, Professor.

Mr. NIMMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

With the Chair's permission I would like to first read a prepared statement that I have.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. Proceed, sir.

STATEMENT OF PROF. MELVILLE B. NIMMER, SCHOOL OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

Mr. NIMMER. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Melville B. Nimmer. I am a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, where I teach copyright law as well as constitutional law and contracts. I am the author of the work "Nimmer on Copyright," a treatise on the law of literary, musical, and artistic property and the protection of ideas. During the current academic year I have taken a leave of absence from UCLA in order to serve in Geneva as a consultant to the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property-known as BIRPI—in connection with its contemplated revision of the Berne Copyright Convention. I am, as a matter of fact, en route to Geneva at the ent time for that purpose.

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Prior to becoming a law professor I was for a number of years engaged in the private practice of law in Los Angeles. My practice was devoted largely to copyright matters. For some years I was on the legal staff of Paramount Pictures Corp., and thereafter represented motion picture producers, writers, and others connected with the motion picture and television industries. For some 5 years I was general counsel to the Writers Guild of America, West, a union of all writers in motion pictures, television, and radio. I mention this to indicate that my professional representation as a lawyer included both author and user groups. I appear before you representing neither such group, nor do I espouse the particular point of view (if there is one) of law teachers. As an academician I am able to express my own view as to the kind of copyright law which will truly promote the progress of science and useful arts in the interests of all people.

I would begin by enthusiastically endorsing H.R. 4347. It represents a remarkable achievement both in concept and execution for which the Copyright Office deserves unstinted praise. Since at this time you have had the benefit of extensive testimony as well as of the report and supplementary report of the Register, it would be an act of supererogation and an imposition on your time for me to remind you of the sound policy reasons underlying many of the major advances contained in the copyright bill before you. Subject to such questions as you may wish to put to me, I will merely enumerate, in order to indicate my approval, certain relatively noncontroversial but nevertheless highly important provisions in the bill. These include a single Federal copyright system replacing the existing troublesome duality between common law and statutory copyright; the extension of the term of copyright to life plus 50 years; the mandatory reversion of copyright after 35 (or in some cases 40) years, replacing the cumbersome and largely ineffective renewal structure; and the according of copyright status to sound recordings. It is to be expected that some persons or groups will object to each of these provisions. I submit, however, that the general consensus which appears to favor (or at least not object to) these provisions reflects the paucity of persuasive

arguments which can be marshaled against them. The need for each of these provisions is to my mind overwhelming, but for reasons above indicated I will reserve any detailed discussion of such needs to the question period.

The Register of Copyrights has indicated elsewhere that five major controversial issues have emerged from the current hearings. I should like to consider these at somewhat greater length, though not, I fear, with the thoroughness which I would require of my students.

There is first the question of education and fair use. This in turn may be broken down into the problem of copying or duplication by teachers, and the problem of performances by educational television stations and the like. Time limitations prevent discussion of the latter issue in this prepared statement, though it is with great reluctance that I desist from doing so. On the issue of unauthorized copying, I should like to first correct what may be an erroneous understanding of the present law by virtue of certain prior testimony. I think it is clear from existing case law, as well as from the statutory language, that unauthorized copying constitutes an infringement regardless of whether or not such copying is used for commercial or "profit" purposes. If this has been the law, at least since 1909, why, we may ask, has the problem of teacher duplication emerged only recently as a major problem? The answer, of course, may be found in recent technological advances whereby the old mimeograph has been largely replaced by accurate, quick, and relatively inexpensive duplication through photocopying and similar methods. How to handle photoduplication, or as it is referred to more generically, reprography, lies at the heart of the teacher duplication problem. These scientific marvels undoubtedly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of modern educational methods. But that in itself does not answer the question as to what segment of society is to bear the cost of this achievement.

If it be true that education will not advance as it might otherwise without the use of a Xerox or similar machine, is it not likewise true that the use of schoolbuses, public address systems, and even airconditioning systems, also materially advance the effectiveness of modern education? Yet no one maintains that the undoubted primacy of education to the Nation justifies the unilateral appropriation by schools or teachers of these other instruments of modern technology. I would suggest that the problem of reprography by teachers is only part of and the forerunner of an infinitely greater problem. It is predictable that within one or two or three decades developments in photoduplication and the like will permit the quality duplication of entire books at a cost which is only a small fraction of the price of printed books. It may similarly be predicted that when that time comes the cost of duplication machines themselves will be so reduced as to be available to anyone who can presently afford to buy a typewriter. When that time comes, if such duplication is not effectively proscribed by the copyright laws, who will be willing to purchase a book when by borrowing one from a library or elsewhere the book can be duplicated for a relative pittance? In such circumstances book publishing may largely disappear, and what then happens to the educational and cultural state of the Nation?