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Mr. YOUNG. The question of ownership rights is also indisputable. Because the studios hired the directors and the actors and everyone else associated with the production of films, they also owned the product. The decision on how to market the films belongs to the studios that made them or whoever bought the rights. Once more, the company that owns those rights has an obligation to its investors to maximize the potential of the library and, in so doing, it helps television networks and individual stations by maximizing their audience and hence revenue. It also is helping raise the level of programming by making available neglected quality films.

Mr. Chairman, we believe that for the production of future new releases, the issue of colorization is one which should be negotiated between the directors and producers or owners of the films on which they are working. Over time, the directors, through the basic contract negotiated by the Directors Guild and in their individual contracts with producers, have obtained certain rights. The colorizing of motion pictures belongs in the same arena.

If Mr. Allen, or any other director, chooses to negotiate a contract with the producers or backers of his films that precludes the colorizing of those films, he should have that right. We would absolutely refuse to color any motion picture when such colorization would be a violation of an existing contract.

Senator LEAHY. That really gives nothing. You say you would have to refuse, but you could do it any way if you were not going to run into a contractual problem.

Mr. YOUNG. What I am trying to point out is that we are not breaking the law right now.

Senator LEAHY. Nobody is suggesting you are, Mr. Young. I hasten to add I think your technology is an absolutely remarkable thing. I find it totally fascinating. I cannot understand how it works, but then I had a hard time getting my word processor turned on in the morning. So that probably does not say a great deal for me. I think you can take a great deal of pride, all of you who are involved with it.

I just want to still stick, of course, to the issues we are dealing with here, which are the legal issues or potential legal issues which arise when color is added to black-and-white film. I think everybody has to acknowledge that the technology is fascinating.

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, our critics do not like our product and think we should not have the right to convert black-and-white to color. Colorization itself infringes on no one's rights, but successful efforts to take away the right of owners to color copies of old black-and-white films would, in our opinion, be a clear violation of a person's right to his own property.

Furthermore, we assert that the American people have the right to choose between a colorized version of a film or the film in its original black and white state. I do not believe any pressure group should or governmental body would tell them what they can and cannot watch.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I want to express my appreciation for hearing our side of the story.

[The statement of Mr. Young follows:]

STATEMENT TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND THE LAW OF THE
U.S. SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE

MAY 12, 1987

Buddy Young

President and Chief Executive Officer
Color Systems Technology, Inc.

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee, my name is Buddy Young and I am President of Color Systems Technology. I appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning, along with my colleagues Roger Mayer, President of Turner Entertainment Company and Rob Word, Senior Vice President of Creative Affairs for Hal Roach Studios.

We ask that the written testimony submitted to the Committee be printed in the record and for the purpose of brevity, we are summarizing our statements this morning.

The company I represent is less than five years old. In 1985, we had 40 employees. Today nearly 200 persons work at Color Systems Technology. Like all new businesses in the United States, we represent entrepreneurial spirit. We have put our personal assets at risk in this new venture. Some of us risked virtually everything we own to form our companies, with the hope of providing ourselves and our shareholders a good return on our investment, while at the same time providing entertainment that the American public wants, accepts and enjoys.

Mr. Chairman, in the ongoing debate over the coloring of films, our critics have attacked our work, questioned our motives and demeaned not only our artistic taste but also that of the people who enjoy watching our product. A great many false claims have been made and misconceptions fostered.

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We have additional videotape which presents a fair example of our work and addresses a number of questions regarding our business.

VIDEOTAPE INSERT

Mr. Chairman, I think you could see from the foregoing how good our work is capable of being, certainly far better than such innovations as sound or even the early Technicolor were at this early stage of their development.

As a matter of fact, we now have the ability to restore some of the great Technicolor movies that have faded with time, classics like "Oklahoma" and "South Pacific" which have become almost unwatchable due to the degraded condition of their prints. This is another form of

enhancement in the service of the motion picture art.

Because of the technical and artistic training of our people and of our growing experience in this new field, we in the business of coloring films have the ability and the responsibility to improve our product. This is important not just in terms of marketing movies, but because of what it accomplishes in allowing us to provide the American public with solid, wholesome entertainment. We aim to make these films available to an entire new generation of Americans.

We are coloring some of Shirley Temple's most endearing movies. We intend to color those wonderful classic cartoons that you watched as children. Many parents would prefer that their children watch the older, less violent cartoons than those that we see today. We will color Abbott and Costello shows, the Laurel and Hardy films, and a number of family oriented, black and white television programs that were serialized during the days when color programming was not offered the general public.

You saw from the earlier videotape that sneers about "computer coloring by number" are entirely unmerited. Human beings

artists, expert in the psychology and application of color

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creative decisions.

own;

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make all the

No computer ever has, or will, color a movie on its

it colors what it is told to do, just as a word processor does the

will of the writer.

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Further, the members of this Committee know, as do our critics, that colorization of black and white films does absolutely nothing to destroy, damage or alter the original films. They are untouched, intact and preserved in their original form. The original versions of some of these films are being shown throughout the United States in art theatres, film institutes, and on television. As a matter of fact, since the telecast of the colored versions of "Miracle on 34th Street" and "It's a Wonderful Life", the original black and white versions have had increased exposure via telecasts and home video sales and rentals.

These are peripheral issues, designed to obscure the purely emotional argument over an author's creative rights rights which were unheard of at studios when the films we are coloring were made.

-

V

Very little reading of the history of Hollywood is needed to discover that the great black and white films were the product of the studios. Ronald Haver, Curator of Film for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, recently said that "Most of the films that we're talking about, the period under consideration, they were not directors' films, they were studio films. If anything, they were writer films because the writer wrote down every single aspect of what the director directed. The director changed nothing

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the director was another craftsman in the creation of the

overall motion picture. So to say that the director may not have wanted

this film to be in color, I think is overstating the case on behalf of the director."

Mr. Chairman, I refer to Mr. Haver, not to diminish or demean the work of the directors. Many are truly gifted and have been handsomely rewarded, both financially and by acclaim and accolades from the public and their professional colleagues. I merely wish to inderline the historic fact from the beginning, filmmaking has been a collabrative effort, relying on the creative contributions of many talented people. Movies are not solely the

work of their directors.

But whether their attacks are motivated financially, since these early works were not subject to residual payments, or by wounded pride, we urge the Committee to look beyond the rhetoric designed to capture headlines or a minute on the nightly news and concentrate instead on the substantive issues involved, from both an artistic and an economic vantage point.

We believe that this issue revolves around the constitutional guarantees of individual rights and property ownership and the public's right to choose in the marketplace. There is a great deal of elitism involved here, the intellectual intent of a few to impose their own views and tastes on millions and millions of Americans who have already expressed their own opinions in unequivocal terms as measured by polls, television ratings and videocassettes sales.

The evidence is indisputable that the films we have colored for television release have attracted enormous audiences

audiences that

dwarf those who have watched the same film in black and white.

The question of ownership rights is also indisputable. Because the studios hired the director and the actors and everyone else associated with the production of the films, they also owned the product. Turner Broadcasting purchased the MGM film library at an enormous cost. The decision on how to market these films, as well as the rights, belong to that company, not the actors, writer or director.

What's more, Mr. Turner

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