COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY NINETY-SEVENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON THE COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1976 82-590 O APRIL 29 AND JULY 29, 1981 Serial No. J-97-20 Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary CONTENTS Ladd, David, Register of Copyrights; accompanied by Dorothy Schrader, Asso- ciate Register of Copyrights and General Counsel; David Leibowitz, Senior Attorney Adviser; and Harriet Oler, Senior Attorney Adviser.. Brennan, Thomas C., Senior Commissioner, Copyright Royalty Tribunal; ac- companied by Douglas C. Coulter, Commissioner; Mary Lou Burg, Commis- Hatfield, Dale N., Acting Assistant Secretary, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. 80 Cable satellite program services: Subscriber counts Ranking of top 50 multisystem operators: Status as of October 1, 1980 OVERSIGHT OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1976 (Cable Television) WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1981 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2228, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Strom Thurmond (chairman of the committee) presiding. Also present: Senator Specter. Staff present: Eric Hultman, general counsel; Bruce Cohen, counsel; John Nash, counsel; and Ralph Oman, counsel. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN STROM THURMOND The CHAIRMAN. The Judiciary Committee will come to order. This morning the committee begins a series of hearings on the oversight of the Copyright Act of 1976. Today's hearing will focus on the provisions of the act dealing with secondary transmissions by cable television and the compulsory license system which now governs the industry. Cable television began in the 1940's and was designed to provide clear reception in areas where either broadcast signals were weak or obstructed by tall structures or terrain. Thus, early cable television was popular in rural areas of the United States. Small, locally operated cable systems came into existence and prerecorded programing was mailed to them, but this proved to be economically impractical. TELECOMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE The major change in this industry occurred with the invention of the telecommunications satellite which could beam multiple television signals simultaneously to any ground station of a cable company. This dramatic development led to an unprecedented growth of the cable television industry. In 1968, only 2.8 million of the Nation's homes out of a total of 56 million had television sets with cable feeds. This amounted to only 5 percent of all households. By 1980, 14 million homes out of 74 million with televisions used cable, which is 20 percent. Conservative estimates are that by 1990 nearly 46 million American homes will have cable or other telecommunications service. The boom in cable television use has also resulted in an increase in revenues for the cable industry. In 1978, for example, revenues increased by 25 percent over 1977 for a total of $1.5 billion. Industry reports indicate that the cable industry has recorded an increase in earnings over the last 4 years of 641 percent. (1) |