Mr. Strackbein, we are pleased to have your statement. I understand that you are in opposition, at least to certain portions or certain phases of this matter, so you will be presenting, perhaps, a new or a different issue than we heard this morning. You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF 0. R. STRACKBEIN, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, INTERNATIONAL ALLIED PRINTING TRADES ASSOCIATION

Mr. STRACKBEIN. My name is O. R. Strackbein. I am legislative representative for the International Allied Printing Trades Association. In this capacity I speak for the members of the five international unions organized in the graphic arts field and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. These unions are the International Typographical Union, the International Photo Engravers' Union, the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders, the International Printing Pressmen's Union, and International Stereotypers' and Electrotypers' Union.

The membership of these unions is approximately 350,000 and represents the great majority of employees in the crafts represented. Members are located in every State in the United States.

This is the first hearing held by a Senate committee on the subject of the Universal Copyright Convention. It therefore seems desirable to review briefly the history of copyright legislation as well as hearings held in this field on the House side of the Congress.

HISTORY OF COPYRIGHT LEGISLATION

The present bill, S. 2559, and the ratification instrument, executive M, are controversial principally with respect to their provisions relating to the so-called manufacturing clause of our copyright law. For this reason, our review will be confined to actual legislation and legislative proposals during the past 5 years, having to do with the manufacturing clause.

In order to put these legislative efforts into proper perspective, we must go to a provision of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, better known as GATT, which was signed in Geneva, Switzerland, on October 30, 1947.

This agreement, among other things, outlawed certain restrictions on the flow of trade, and provided that such restrictions would not be maintained. The relevant part of the agreement (art. XI, par. 1) reads as follows:

No prohibitions or restrictions other than duties, taxes, or other charges, whether made effective through quotas, import or export licenses, or other measures, shall be instituted or maintained by any contracting party on the importation of any product of the territory of any other contracting party *** GATT, that is, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, of course, was a purely executive agreement, and was never submitted to Congress or to the Senate for ratification. Yet it was soon apparent that one of the nontariff restrictions on trade embedded in our domestic law was the manufacturing clause of our copyright statute. This clause requires that any work printed in the English language in order to enjoy copyright protection in this country must be manufactured in the United States. The law goes back to 1891 and to a later perfecting amendment added by the Copyright Act of 1909.

However, because its existence, that is, the existence of the manufacturing clause, was in conflict with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which, to repeat, was an executive agreement, not a treaty, our Department of State soon busied itself with efforts to bring about the repeal of the clause, and, of course, received the support of the Library of Congress which had long opposed the restriction.

The first legislative effort after our entry into GATT was made in 1949. At that time a bill which was not satisfactory to the Department of State was introduced to relax the manufacturing clause. The national printing trades unions, the same ones that I represent here today, supported the liberalizing provisions of the bill. These provisions called for extension of the interim copyright from the then existing 6-month period to a 5-year period and permitted the importation of 1,500 copies of books in English during this 5-year period under copyright protection. And I may add, these 1,500 copies did not have to be manufactured in the United States.

This liberalization was designed to permit the testing of our market. If, after testing the market during this 5-year period, it were decided that sales prospects were good and that further publication was justified, all additional copies must be fully manufactured in this country as a condition of continued copyright protection.

The liberalizing bill was passed by Congress and became law. It had indeed been opposed in public hearings by the State Department because the bill did not go whole hog and therefore did not comply with our commitment under GATT.

Before the lapse of much more time, the drafting of a Universal Copyright Convention under the auspices of UNESCO came to our attention and, indeed, representatives of the printing trades unions were invited to participate in preliminary discussions which were conducted under the chairmanship of the then Librarian of Congress, Dr. Luther Evans, who is now Director General of UNESCO. While we interposed no objection to a Universal Copyright Convention as such, we did oppose elimination or any material weakening of the manufacturing clause. Official negotiations with other countries proceeded.

PREVIOUS DEFEAT OF SIMILAR LEGISLATION

Pursuant to a Paris conference held in 1951, a draft convention was produced. It contained a provision that would have weakened greatly the clause in question and was to that extent in conflict with our existing domestic law. In view of this, in view of this conflict, a bill was introduced into Congress for the purpose of modifying our law to bring it into conformity with the draft convention.

Senator WILEY. Was that convention the same as this one?

Mr. STRACKBEIN. This convention came out of the draft convention that was then under discussion, under negotiation.

This was proper procedure, and we took occasion to commend the Library of Congress and the State Department for their straightforward approach. We said so in the public hearing held before a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee of the House in January

1952.

That was a hearing on the bill that was introduced for modification of our Copyright Act to conform it to the draft convention mentioned above.

What happened to the bill? It was approved by the subcommittee and came before the full Judiciary Committee of the House. There it was rejected by a very decisive vote, and that was the end of the legislative effort.

However, the Department of State and the Library of Congress did not seem to be much impressed by this action of the legislative branch. They went right ahead as if nothing had happened and negotiated the present Universal Convention, with the same provision in it that had been so directly and decisively rejected by Congress.

Now they are back with another bill

Senator WILEY. Will you identify that provision here?

Mr. STRACKBEIN. That is the provision which would modify the manufacturing clause to permit copyright protection to books first published abroad in the English language by aliens, that is to say, authors not citizens of the United States and residing in a foreign country; that is the provision.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. In other words, an issue that was published in English abroad, on limited sales, could be had in this country; there was no limitation of 1,500 or anything of that kind.

Mr. STRACKBEIN. That is correct, providing the author was not an American citizen or is not a resident alien of the United States.

As I said, now they are back with another bill, hoping to use the force of the moral obligation contained in our signature of the convention to bring Congress into line. Also, the continued leadership of the free world by the United States against the forces of communism is somehow invoked and harnessed in support of both the implementing legislation and ratification.

This is a reversion to the cart-before-the-horse procedure which the proponents had apparently shunned 2 years ago, that is, making a treaty that knowingly conflicts with domestic law first and then seeking legislation to bring our existing law into conformity, instead of going to Congress first and then, if the change in domestic law is approved, concluding a treaty.

What we have before us is a double-squeeze play. First, we have an effort to bring our domestic law part way into compliance with an executive agreement, namely, GATT, which has never been ratified by Congress. Second, we have the effort to conform our law, after the fact, to a signed treaty, negotiated under the auspices of UNESCO. The question arises, Why not just send Congress home so far as the conduct of foreign affairs is concerned? Why not give the Department of State a free hand instead of going through the motion of congressional participation?

Up to this point we have addressed ourselves only to the objections against high-handed procedure. The printing trades have a reason for opposing strongly the substantive features of the bills before this subcommittee, insofar as their modification of the manufacturing clause is concerned.

ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF MANUFACTURING CLAUSE

This opposition is economic in character and relates to employment and wages. The original objective of the manufacturing clause is as compelling of our support today as it was 50 years ago. If anything, it is more so, because the rate of duty applicable to imported books has been cut, under the trade-agreements program, to the nominal level of 5 percent, unless the books are bound in leather, in which case the rate is 10 percent. These rates offer little or no protection to the printing-trades employees against the lower wage rates of other countries. Previously the duty was 25 percent.

Much is made by the proponents of the present bills of the relatively small percentage of books in the English language that are imported in relation to total book publication in this country, and they profess to believe that the opening of our market to copyright by foreign authors writing in English, without requiring manufacture in this country, would lead to very little increase in imports. One wonders, then, why anyone should want to bother about changing the law. If it would make no important difference if we should modify our law, why not leave it as it is?

Of course, we do not think that all the effort that has been put forth to change our law represents so much shadow boxing, merely for the fun of it. We believe that there is real substance in the desire for the change and we do not believe that the change would be in the interest of the printing-trades employees in this country.

Publishers have gone to considerable trouble and expense to gather statistics on imports of printed matter in various categories. They have succeeded in boiling down to a point of insignificance the field in which the proposed manufacturing clause modification would operate.

What have they proved? Either that their efforts are much ado about nothing or that if the present barrier to greatly increased imports would be removed, imports would, indeed, increase very appreciably. Under the first alternative, the publishers would gain nothing or only some wholly negligible advantage; under the second alternative, the printing trades would lose material advantages now enjoyed under the manufacturing clause.

The mere fact that under the manufacturing clause imports are restricted does not mean that imports would continue at that level if the clause were repealed. Foreign publishers, knowing that the American market lay open before them, with only a nominal rate of duty to impede them, could make special manufacturing arrangements to supply this market. They could install the necessary modern presses and thus gain full advantage of their much lower wage rates; they could follow all this with special sales campaigns aimed at their newly widened market potential.

To be sure, American publishers, especially the larger ones, would not only not be hurt; they undoubtedly would benefit by arranging to distribute the books published abroad in this country. By contrast, the American typesetters, printing-press operators, photoengravers, electrotypers, and bookbinders would suffer to the extent of the publishers' success.

Apparently books translated into English and printed abroad would also gain copyright recognition in this country under the new convention. The convention says:

Copyright shall include the exclusive right of the author to make, publish, and authorize the making and publication of translations of works protected under this convention.

If my interpretation is correct, this would permit shopping around by publishers in search of low printing costs as a means of avoiding the employment of American printing-trades employees.

RESERVATIONS TO CONVENTION NOT PERMISSIBLE

Unfortunately the convention itself bars completely the adoption by any signatory country of any reservation. This provision bars ratification of the convention with a reservation retaining our manufacturing clause.

Now, I cannot explain why that provision was inserted into the treaty. Certainly we have adopted other treaties, have ratified treaties in the past with reservations. We ratified one in this particular field with China just a few years ago, with a reservation.

It is argued that other countries do not require our publishers to manufacture in their territory as a condition precedent to copyright protection; and that if we do not modify the clause, lifting this requirement for copyright on books in English, we may expect retaliation. It should be kept in mind that the manufacturing clause applies only to books printed in English. We ask therefore, what countries would retaliate? And what would they gain by retaliation? Also, what country or countries have used this threat? A bill of particulars might be enlightening.

Mr. Chairman, we urge this joint subcommittee to reject both S. 2559 and the instrument of ratification.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Thank you, Mr. Strackbein.

Mr. STRACKBEIN. Thank you.

Senator HICKENLOOPER. Senator Wiley, do you have any questions?

POSITION OF BOOK MANUFACTURERS

Senator WILEY. Yes. If the printing trades are going to suffer, as you have said, by the relaxation of the clause, why have the book manufacturers, whose interests are identical, come out in favor of the legislation?

Mr. STRACKBEIN. Senator Wiley, I would prefer that you ask them that question. I'm not fully acquainted with the membership of the Book Manufacturers' Institute. However, I do believe that they have a fairly heavy membership consisting of concerns that are big publishers as well as manufacturers and therefore have a publishing interest in addition to their manufacturing operations.

Senator WILEY. I have a wire here addressed to me personally: Strongly urge favorable action on the Universal Copyright Convention. Such action will unquestionably aid all Americans in the creative arts respectively. It is signed Ira Gershwin. We all know who Gershwin is. He says it would aid all Americans in the creative arts, respectively.