COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY NINETY-EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON HOW TO PROTECT THE NATION'S CREATIVITY BY PROTECTING THE SEPTEMBER 25, 1984 Serial No. J-98-142 Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary CONTENTS STATEMENTS Page Ladd, Hon. David, Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, accompanied by David E. Leibowitz and Lewis Flacks, Policy Planning Advisors to the Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress, Washington, DC............ MATERIAL SUBMITTED Ladd, Hon. David: "To Secure Intellectual Property Rights in World Com- merce," a report to the Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights and Trade- marks of the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. Senate and to the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, from the U.S. Copyright Office, 3 OVERSIGHT ON INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHTS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1984 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, in room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, commencing at 2:30 p.m., Senator Patrick J. Leahy (member of the subcommittee) presiding. Staff present: Ralph Oman, chief counsel; Thomas Olson, counsel; Pamela S. Batstone, chief clerk (Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks); John Podesta, minority chief counsel; B.D. Scotch, minority counsel (Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism); Renn M. Patch, counsel (Subcommittee on the Constitution); and Beverly E. McKittrick, counsel (Subcommittee on Criminal Law). OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT Senator LEAHY. The meeting will come to order. I am very pleased that in the frantic rush of the Senate to deal with the end-of-session agenda, with important things such as that of the continuing resolution, genocide treaty, and other matters of signal importance to the United States and the rest of the world, that we were able to take time to think about longer term concerns, such as how to protect the Nation's creativity by protecting the value of intellectual property. I will put my full statement in the record, but I would like to note a couple of things. The problem is vast. The value of pirated tapes in the Middle East alone was $66 million in 1982. In Saudi Arabia it is almost impossible to find a recording that has been produced with the consent of the original producer. The number of pirated copies of recordings in the Pacific Basin approaches 140 million units a year. Singapore is now considered to be the piracy capital of the world, and its government refuses to take an official stand against piracy. I asked one of the government officials about that, having seen so many obviously pirated items on the street, and his answer was very blunt and to the point. "It makes money," and they have no intention of doing anything about it. Developing and underdeveloped countries are not the only offenders. Almost 20,000 pirated videocassettes were seized in West Germany in just one quarter of last year, and similar problems (1) |