Messrs. Zanuck and Brown. According to our copywrite law, the author of "Jaws" is the Matsushita Corp. They didn't write it, direct it, they didn't act in it, I know that for sure. I urge you to support the bill, and I can assure Mr. Moorhead that the labeling at the local level is no more complicated than typing "Clear and sunny, rain tomorrow, humidity 70 percent, good surfing conditions." It is a typing thing they do every evening on the news. They can do it for a local picture.

The ACLU recognizes that commercial speech deserves first amendment protections and their policy 16 outlines that. They say mandated disclaimers and warnings are well-established for the securities and financial regulations, certainly permissible in commercial speech. I am quoting from the ACLU's own document, policy 16. There are many other objections. You will hear them this after

noon.

As an executive of a union, I am here to tell you that writers, 10,000 of whom I represent, cannot collectively bargain for improvement in these areas because they are not about wages and working conditions. The way the labor laws of this country are constructed, we are prohibited from bargaining in those areas. If the companies decline to bargain, we cannot force them to the table on those issues. So we need the protection of the Congress, as does the general consumer.

Thanks very much for helping to provide that protection and informing the consumer.

Mr. HUGHES. Thank you, Mr. Gottlieb.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gottlieb follows:]

STATEMENT OF CARL GOTTLIEB IN REGARD TO H.R. 3051, ON BEHALF OF THE WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA, EAST AND WEST, TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY.

March 5, 1992.

Mr. Chairman:

My name is Carl Gottlieb, and I'm the elected vice president of the Writers Guild of America, West. I thank you and the members of the Committee for this privilege and opportunity to address you today.

I testify on behalf of both the Writers Guild of America, East and West ("WGA") representing more than 10,000 writers of film, television and radio in the United States.

I testify to the WGA's strong support of the Film Disclosure Act. H.R. 3051. BACKGROUND:

For twenty-five years I've worked in the film and television industry as an actor, producer, and director, and since 1968, my principal employment has been as a screen and television writer. I am the author of two books about the entertainment business that have been on the New York Times national bestsellers list. I've written comedy, drama, and action-adventure film and television. I've worked as a film and television director, and as a screen writer I have worked very closely with directors, beginning with an intense and productive collaboration with Steven Spielberg on "JAWS." I know from personal, hands-on experience, how a film is made, from conception to completion. I am a member of the Writers Guild, the Directors Guild, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Screen Actors Guild ("SAG") the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists ("AFTRA"), and am on honrary withdrawal from Actors Equity Association ("AEA").

I have been a member of the WGA since 1968. I have been an elected member of the Writers Guild West's Board of Directors since 1983, and was elected vice president in 1991. Over the years I have served on numerous Guild committees, am a member of the WGA's National Council, and have co-chaired the union's Negotiating Committee. I speak today, then, with an understanding of American film derived over two decades of experience with artistic, union, and business perspectives, but primarily from a writer's point of view.

My statement today follows the form of daily business routine in Hollywood, California, and the traditional customs of Washington, D.C. in any election year. On both coasts, we are busy explaining, debunking, and entreating.

First, I hope to demonstrate why the passage of H.R. 3051 is in the best interests of the American people, and advances our culture and civilization.

Second, I'd like to discredit some of the contrived objections that I am told are

being raised to hinder passage of the act.

Third, I'll be asking you to recognize that this Congress caused an imbalance with the work-for-hire doctrine, and that this Congress can begin to correct it affirmatively with the modest steps laid out in H.R. 3051.

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There are positive reasons to pass this bill. I trust you'll agree that the affirmative reasoning is clear-- with passage of H.R. 3051, The Congress will let the word go forth at home and abroad that the United States seeks to enhance its civilization and culture by recognizing the importance of our indigenous art forms and by respecting our artists and creators.

Carved into the walls of our national cultural center are these words, written by President John F. Kennedy:

"I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty. I
look forward to an America that commands respect throughout the world not
only for its strength, but for its civilization as well. We, too will be
remembered not for our victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for
our contribution to the human spirit."

When American film artists and our fellow artists around the world look at the United States, we see President Kennedy's vision blurred in regard to film art and film artists.

H.R. 3051 is a positive step that helps disarm those around the world who argue against the United States film industry in the General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT) and in the European Economic Community (EEC). This bill robs them of arguments which seek to limit or exclude our work by quotas and protectionist measures.

As witnesses from the WGA have previously testified', the American film industry is often viewed in negative terms by film artists' groups around the world. These groups are respected, have influence within their countries, and are listened to by their governments. Of course, there is a great admiration for much of the film art produced here, but the United States is seen as the slaughterhouse of film, a country without laws to protect the artistic rights of film authors, a country that wants copyright protection only for economic reasons, a country that does not even pay lip service to the moral rights provisions of the Berne Convention. In the eyes of the rest of the world, we are a country that prizes film as a commodity, not as art.

That these perceptions may not be entirely correct does not change the fact that these perceptions work to our detriment in debates on world trade, in GATT and elsewhere.

Writers' and directors' groups around the world are terrified, and rightly so. They suspect that when they import American movies they will be importing American film industry business practices. They fear they will be stripped of the moral and artistic rights which they now enjoy.

Regardless of whether that fear is accurate, there is no question that opportunistic political and business interests in foreign countries will continue to use artists' groups to create a political milieu in which to argue against American interests. H.R. 3051 will signal clearly that the Congress has taken steps to begin to respect film art.

Here at home, the message of the passage of H.R. 3051 will be heard loud and clear-by artists, by students, by businessmen and women. The law and our government will be seen to honor creativity and respect individual creators as artists, not as simple manufacturers of commodities, "art by the pound."

1. See e.g., statement of Brian Walton in regard to H.R. 2372, on behalf of the Writers Guild of America, West to the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration, House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, June 12, 1991.

Know also that the passage of H.R. 3051 will ensure greater honesty for consumers, for those who turn to films for entertainment and edification. Now the public is misled. They often see a film without any indication that the television or video version has been chopped up. With passage of the Act, the public will be informed, they will be told the truth, and this will be accomplished simply, easily and with no interruption of commerce.

Finally, this is simply a decent and good thing to do. Screenwriter witnesses such as Phil Alden Robinson, Bo Goldman, and Frank Pierson have told this and Senate committees how much work a writer puts into the initial authoring of a film. I can only confirm that the creative process can take years of effort, and as much perspiration as inspiration. And the script is only the beginning. When the screenplay is finished, other artists perform their miracles of creativity and interpetation.

The director of the film and the director of photography spend months of intense effort, after which time the director and editor and composer labor mightily for months, even years more. Every working minute involves the continuous exercise of creative and artistic judgment. A finished film is the result of practically thousands, if not millions, of choices. It is fundamentally shameful and indecent that this finished work of art, so painstakingly crafted in a crucible of creative collaboration, can change, often without notification to its authors, and without any chance even to register an objection.

Those notions of human decency have led to the birth of moral rights around the world, but not here in the United States. H.R. 3051 is a cautious and prudent step towards redressing this grievance.

The need appropriately to balance the rights of property-owners and individual artists is embodied in Article 6 bis of the Berne Convention to which the United States is finally signatory:

"Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation, or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation.

That such a right to object is a human right was recognized by the United Nations when the General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948. The preamble speaks eloquently of the need for respect of human rights and proclaims the Declaration as a "common standard" for obtaining and maintaining human rights. Presidents of the United States have frequently invoked the Declaration and proclaimed its importance.

Article 27 of the Declaration provides:

"1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the
community, to enjoy the arts, and to share in scientific advancement and its
benefits.

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author."

It is obviously not only governments that can restrict human rights. What we seek through the act is congressional advancement and recognition of an internationally recognized human right. That right is presently being denied by corporate employers whose power to do so derives, at least in part, from an act of Congress, which Congress can (and

should) amend.

THERE ARE NO SERIOUS OBSTACLES TO H.R. 3051

Let me now address some of the purported negative implications of this bill, which I understand are being circulated to scare the Committee away from a positive report.

Let's focus on the limits in H.R. 3051. We are here today to ask that you support a bill that simply requires a notification and labelling process to occur if a copyright owner desires to materially alter, and then market an altered version of a film after its initial release.

I'm told that our good friend, Mr. Jack Valenti, and his colleagues, are telling the Congress that the mere insertion of a brief and honest label will be the death of the film business! That no one will watch these films if such a label is attached! If this was poker, I'd call these fragile assertions a weak pair, easily beat.

The first assumes that the label may appear pejorative. Not necessarily, but if so, let's acknowledge that the truth is often inconvenient and critical, but nevertheless the truth. The truth is all that will be conveyed by the label. Let the consumer know the truth and the consumer in our much-hallowed marketplace can decide. The fact that some televised films bear the label "edited for television" or "may be unsuitable for children" or "contains scenes of violence" hasn't destroyed the film business. Neither will these labels.

The second point made is that the label will "clutter" the front of the film and thus discourage viewers. This agreement will amuse anyone who goes to the movies and sits through any film's opening moments. I invite the committee to view a film which begins with the endless on-screen inanities of corporate logos, flashing, galloping, flying, and exploding in a demonstration of computer-generated graphics and animation. And the movie hasn't even started yet!

Next comes a series of statements assuring us that "Elwood Smedley presents a Silver Screen Partners IX / Filmverke Gesellschaft S.A. Production of a Skippy Weidermier Film, in association with the South Bay Orthodontia Society." That's a hypothetical main title, but one need look no farther than the local six-plex at the mall to find end credits on films that often include not only credits to the writer, director, cinematographer, cast and crafts who actually made the film, but endless acknowledgments of the peripheral, including accountants, lawyers, caterers, and in one recent blockbuster (this is actual, not invented), a credit for the chauffeur to the CEO of the company that financed the film!

Thus, the "clutter" argument is obvious nonsense. You should know that lawyers for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ("AMPTP") advised that to comply with the United Kingdom's Copyright, Designs, and Patent Act of 1988, they had to put a label on all prints of motion pictures which states:

"The [company] is the author of this film for the purpose of copyright and other laws."

They did so. They didn't mind. The AMPTP put that notice on every motion picture, happily, and over the objections of the Writers and Directors Guilds. The film industry survived. It will survive the notice required in H.R. 3051. Believe me, writers have no interest in harming the financial success of the film business. We don't bite the hand that feeds us, however clumsy and uncaring that hand may be.

You are being told that the next obstacle to the passage of this bill is the First Amendment. Along with thousands of writers, directors, cinematographers and other lovers of liberty across our country, I am shocked by that argument.

Álthough I am not a lawyer, I feel strongly and passionately that this argument is as