for a few months a year rather than all year like we are now. I think it is our responsibility to try to protect the integrity of art forms in the United States which are the subject of unrelenting pressure from commercial interests in America to make fully acknowledge, make the display of these art forms possible.

But they also, throughout history, have always been a serious threat to the integrity of the various forms which they try to profit from in the publicizing of them and we need to be diligent in our efforts to see to it that they do not stamp out the beauty and the truth that was originally intended to be woven into those statements, and I think that is what we are here for today, and I appreciate it very much, being allowed to participate.

Mr. HUGHES. You have heard from us now. We are hear to hear from you. The very fact that we probably have more members here today than I have seen since we organized about a year-almost a year-and-a-half ago, a little over a year ago, that says something about the issue and about those who are testifying today.

The two leaders of the legislation in the Congress are also with us to open up our hearing today. We are just delighted to have the prime sponsors of the legislation, both in the House and on the Senate side.

Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming is a most distinguished Member of the other body. We are delighted to have him with us today, and our colleague, Bob Mrazek, a long-time Member of Congress from the Third Congressional District of New York.

I remember, in fact, when Bob brought some of the folks that are very interested in moral rights to the Congress several years ago, among them Jimmy Stewart and we are indebted to you for your work on this particular issue. So we welcome you. We have your statements, which, without objection, will be made a part of the record.

We hope you can summarize for us. We have all read your statements.

Senator, you want to start or you want to defer to Bob Mrazek? Welcome.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. MRAZEK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. MRAZEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I deeply appreciate your willingness and interest to hold hearings on this issue. On a personal note, let me suggest that I fully understand that the issue of this legislation is not equivalent to some of the national security challenges facing this Nation, as with respect to education, health care and the plight of our cities.

But let's start with this. Films are an American art form and as an art form, it began here. Films personally have helped to shape my life more than any other art form except books.

I learned more about the struggle for human dignity and the resilience of the human spirit from films like "Grapes of Wrath" and the "Best Years of Our Lives" than I did at looking at all of the treasures in the "Versailles Palace." These are films that uniquely reflect their time and they speak to us about courage and the advancement of the human condition.

What is at stake here is not so much a copyright question or a moral rights for film artists in this particular legislation and it is certainly not about anyone's financial self interest. It is about the simple truth, and I must suggest to you that this could represent an important foundation for some issues that we are going to have to confront in the future.

Because through computer imagery, it is becoming increasingly possible to recreate faces and voices and those of us in public life can fully appreciate the sensitivity of seeing our face and hearing our voice articulating some views that we might not find very consonant with the things that we really believe in. And so from the standpoint that we are building a foundation for the truth, I think it is an important piece of legislation.

I would conclude, because I would hope that there would be some questions about what this legislation actually does, by making it clear what the bill does not do. It does not prohibit the current practice of defacement of motion pictures on television and videocassette.

It does not cost the taxpayer a cent. It does not permit the current practice of denying the public the knowledge that the films they are seeing are not being shown in their original form.

It does not provide a burdensome labeling requirement, and it does not provide financial compensation for the creative authors of any of these works. Otherwise, I think you probably have a pretty good idea of what the legislation is attempting to do in establishing a labeling process against some of the more common forms of material alteration, such as time compression.

You know, some of the directors who made some of the great films, some of the great masterpiece works in this Nation's history, had a pretty good sense of timing. "High Noon," as a film, was designed to use exquisite timing, particularly in the last 10 minutes of that film.

The idea of time compression, speeding it up so you can squeeze more commercials in is, in my view, a travesty because it does destroy the creative vision of the people who made that film. A label, a simple label, when someone is going to time compress a film for instance, is not seemingly too burdensome. But such material alterations, of course, are open to discussion today and I hope we will have a healthy and energetic debate on those issues.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HUGHES. Thank you, Bob.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mrazek follows:]

Mr. Chairman, I am delighted that your subcommittee has agreed to hold this hearing on the Film Disclosure Act of 1991 (H.R. 3051), which pertains to the issue of material alteration of American films. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. Motion pictures represent one of our few indigenous art forms, and I believe their protection merits congressional intervention.

For almost five years now, I have been involved in the congressional effort to provide protection to American films. I was proud to author the National Film Preservation Act, which established the National Film Registry under the auspices of the Library of Congress. While that program has been a success and a small number of films enjoy greater protection as a result, thousands of American films are afforded no protection at all. That is why enactment of H.R. 3051 is so important.

First, let me tell you what this bill does not do: it does not prohibit the current practice of defacement of motion pictures on television and video; it does not cost the taxpayer a cent; it does not permit the current practice of denying the public the knowledge that the

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films they are seeing are not being shown in their original form; it does not provide a burdensome labeling requirement; and, it does not provide

financial compensation to the creative authors.

As you are aware, H.R. 3051 would amend the Lanham Act to require that labels be affixed to feature-length motion pictures which have been materially-altered after their original theatrical release. Each public exhibition of a materially-altered motion picture and each copy of that film sold or leased to the public on videocassette would contain a label. That label would reveal the fact that the motion picture has been changed from its original version and the nature of that alteration. It would also disclose the fact that the artistic author (the film's principal director, screenwriter and/or cinematographer) objects to the alteration if he or she, in fact, does.

Material alteration has been defined to include such changes as colorization, lexiconning, time compression and expansion,

panning-and-scanning and editing. Although there are other changes which constitute material alterations, these practices are currently the most troubling and widespread, particularly in the television marketplace. H.R. 3051 would use the "first paid public exhibition of a motion picture" as its reference point for determining when a film has been materially-altered.

Syndicators, distributors, networks and videocassette manufacturers would make a good faith effort to contact a film's artistic authors (or the appropriate professional guilds) prior to exhibiting or distributing the film to determine if the artists object to any of the material

alterations made to the motion picture. These exhibitors would include their own label if they further alter these motion pictures. The Act would give standing to artistic authors and their heirs to seek copyright law remedies, including injunctions, statutory damages and, in some cases, punitive damages.

To me, there are two distinct reasons why we must approve this legislation: one, it would provide previously undisclosed information to the consumer (viewer) about the film he or she watches, buys or rents; and two, it gives the artistic author an opportunity to object to the changes made by an entity not associated with the creation of the film.

I believe that the vast majority of Americans who rent videos, for instance, believe that the video they rent is identical to the motion picture which was released in the theaters. Certainly, I did until I became more familiar with this industry. While this legislation would not prohibit the deletion of 10 or 20 minutes from a video or its time compression in order to shorten the running time to fit into a particular tape length, for instance, it would establish a means by which the public is informed about these changes.

A label is an innocuous means by which to educate the consumer about a specific product. The current debate on breast implants is as much about the right to know the risks of the implants as it is about the implants themselves. The current debate on accurate labeling requirements for food packaging is as much about the public's right-to-know what they are buying and eating as it is about what products they actually eat. The government's decisions to require labels on alcoholic beverages and