FEES CREDITED TO APPROPRIATION

Mr. BENJAMIN. Last year's bill, there was a provision to allow copyright fees to be credited directly to the appropriation. How much will be collected in 1978 and can you anticipate any figure for 1979?

Ms. RINGER. For purposes of this added wrinkle in the new law, we are anticipating 4.1 million, which is what we are gambling on. That would be, at $10 a registration, about 410,000 registrations. Mr. BENJAMIN. That is for 1979?

Ms. RINGER. For 1979, yes.

Mr. BENJAMIN. You are requesting an administrative provision to allow the excess of fees over that amount to be used in the following fiscal year. You have explained that.

On page 151 of the justifications, which we will insert in the record at this point, there is a table that compares income and obligations. Briefly highlight that for us.

[The information referred to follows:]

The following table compares income and obligations for fiscal 1974 to 1979:

obligations, excluding

INCOME COMPARED TO OBLIGATIONS

Ms. RINGER. Yes.

For 1979-I will speak of 1979.

Mr. BENJAMIN. That is fine.

Ms. RINGER. We estimate $5.628 million, which is based on a 7 percent projected increase, as I testified. I think we are estimating a five percent increase, which has been the average increase in workload, and adding 2 percent on top of that for the new law. It could be quite different from that.

We are also estimating the acquisition of materials of the value of $6.504 million, and adding that into income. We have done this traditionally. This is broken down on the preceding page.

As you will see, the value of the items selected, estimated, is in the right-hand column, table 1, page 150. I think this is low. I guess we are going to get a lot more motion pictures and they are extremely valuable.

In the last month in that great influx of stuff in December, we received some incredible manuscript material; actual holographic manuscripts of famous songwriters, composers, and so forth. That I think is an intangible you cannot really put a money amount on, but it is very substantial.

Our obligations, salaries and others, come out to about the same 12.287 million, as against 12.133 million, which makes the ratio about 99 percent. I had hoped it would be over 100, but we came out at 99.

The fees alone would come out at 46 percent. I think that is pretty realistic, but I do not know. It is expensive to raise the fees, but the fees may be a little on the low side under the new law.

OTHER SERVICES INCREASE EXPLANATION REQUESTED

Mr. BENJAMIN. Under other services you have indicated an amount of plus $92,000; $17,000 you indicate is to fund 4 surveys conducted annually by HEW, National Center for Educational Statistics.

Would you tell us precisely what you use that for?

Ms. RINGER. Yes. This is part of the obligation I referred to under section 108 (i). I have to keep a continuing overview of how section 108, the library photocopying section, is working and make reports at five-year intervals, first time I think is 1980.

This HEW survey is a study inaugurated by CONTU, which will be testifying next. We are picking up the funding for it. It is a statistical study of library and educational photocopying, and it is being done for this purpose. I think it is quite cheap. We could not do it any cheaper. We probably could not do it at all.

Mr. BENJAMIN. You indicate there is $75,000 needed for 4 studies of provisions of the new copyright law. You delineate 3 of them. Are you indicating that is specifically found within the framework of the law?

Ms. RINGER. Yes, that is right.

Mr. BENJAMIN. What is the time frame on that?

Ms. RINGER. The manufacturing clause is an old aberration in our copyright law going back to 1891. It is a protectionist measure, kind of a nonduty trade barrier. It is supposed to be phased out in

1982. In the negotiations that led up to that phaseout, it was understood that, if Congress put a date for the phaseout in the statute, it would ask the Copyright Office to make a study to see if this is really having an adverse effect on the printing industries and the printing trades unions.

They have already been in to see us. They would like to supply the data for the study, but I do not think that it is a very good idea to limit the study to that. I think we should do the study, and if they want to contribute statistics to it, let them. I think the study should be done under objective auspices.

IS 1979 STUDY PREMATURE

Mr. BENJAMIN. My question is, is it not premature to be doing this in fiscal 1979?

Ms. RINGER. I do not think so and they do not either. I think it is going to take that long to see just what the impact is from January 1, 1978 on. We cannot go back and collect the figures retrospectively. It involves actual surveys of imports of books.

Mr. BENJAMIN. How about the next 2-you have mentioned them-public broadcast, nondramatic literature report?

Ms. RINGER. It has to be done, as a workload item. A big issue in the revision was the status of public broadcasting. As the act came out, there is a sort of compulsory license for public broadcasting. The scheme involves the Copyright Royalty Tribunal, whom you will be hearing tomorrow, for nondramatic music and graphicspictorial, graphic, and sculptural works-on public broadcasting. The most controversial issue involved nondramatic literary material, which public broadcasting would like to use without specific licenses. The understanding was that nondramatic literary material would not be made subject to compulsory licensing, but that again the Copyright Office would be given a responsibility to see how the system was working-whether or not licenses were, as promised, actually being granted by authors and book publishers. If they were not, then I would report to that effect to Congress. I do not think this is quite as difficult a report to make as the others. Mr. BENJAMIN. Thank you.

NATIONAL COMMISSION ON NEW TECHNOLOGICAL USE OF

COPYRIGHTED WORKS

Mr. BENJAMIN. The National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works. We note that, under Public Law 95146, the National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works is due to expire on July 31, 1978. Therefore, no fiscal 1979 funds are requested.

We will insert the budget schedule at this point. [The information follows:]

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