a system that provides so many ways to alter and improve them--ways such as the hearing we are involved in today.

He is too young to

But his eyes glaze over at these explanations. understand, and the logic too complicated, and finally irrelevant to the essential issue, which is property, be it intellectual or physical--as I said earlier, H.R. 989 is about something at the very heart of our system...

Property. Imagine for a moment how it would feel if your grandmother had left you an exquisite quilt of her own making, and after a certain time government officials appeared at your door and said, "This quilt has been in your family long enough, now it belongs to the world!?"

Yet that's exactly what happens to the things I make during my life. H.R. 989 is about one thing--property. It's about how soon after people like me have made what we make, can the government, by law, take it away from us. At the moment, they must wait only fifty years. It is a small thing to ask that we be allowed to keep it in the family for another twenty. It is a modest request. I urge you to grant it.

Thank you for this opportunity...and I hope your efforts will result in a change of law that I can hold up to my sons as an example of why our system and the extraordinary vigor of the arts it generates, are the envy of the world.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Ms. Saffer.

STATEMENT OF JUDITH M. SAFFER, ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL, BROADCAST MUSIC, INC.

Ms. SAFFER. Good morning Chairman Moorhead and other Members of the subcommittee. My name is Judith Saffer. I am the assistant general counsel of Broadcast Music, Inc., referred to as BMI, and also the president-elect of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A.

I am here this morning to speak on behalf of the composers, songwriters, and publishers of BMI who are members of the copyright coalition. I wish to express their support for copyright term extension. I am also authorized to advise the committee that another group with which I am associated, the American Intellectual Property Lawyers Association, 9,000-plus lawyers in the intellectual property field, have also passed a resolution in support of copyright term extension.

I am undoubtedly the shortest witness who has testified this morning; so I, therefore, think it behooves me to have the briefest comments. In view of the fact that we are short of time, I don't want to repeat the statements that have been made by other witnesses in support of the copyright term extension. I don't believe that it would benefit anybody to hear me try to articulate the reasons why the bill should be enacted when others have spoken so well before me.

It is, in fact, because I sat here listening to those other speakers that I am reminded of exactly why we are here arguing for copyright term extension. I listened to Mrs. Bergman speak so articulately, and I was again reminded when I listened to Mr. Weller, just a moment ago, that we have right here, right now, perfect examples of why copyright term extension should be enacted.

It is not simply the points that these individuals made, but it is the way that they expressed them. People such as myself, lawyers, can make the points, perhaps with all the right words, but not with the eloquent words that are really persuasive. It is these individuals, the creators, who should be entitled to the protection that this bill seeks to grant for them. And it seems particularly appropriate that they should get the same kind of protection that the writers and creators of works in Europe receive. I can see no reason why they should be second-class citizens.

One of the things that came up during the course of the questioning of the first panel was why the rights of people like Mrs. Bergman and Mr. Weller should be granted additional protection versus the claims of entrepreneurs who wish to benefit from their creativity. And I guess the response that I have to that is that, in balance, if somebody is going to reap the rewards of their creative product, shouldn't it be them and their families? Shouldn't it be them and their children and, yes, even their grandchildren if they are fortunate to have them?

There is no indication to me as a consumer-and I am sure to most of you as consumers-that the American public really benefits more from the exploitation of a work once it goes into the public domain. When I bought my ticket to see "Phantom of the Opera" I didn't pay any less money for that than I paid for a ticket for

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"Miss Saigon" just because one was based on a story that was in the public domain.

In fact, I think pragmatism tells us that the converse is true. The entertainment industry, which is the industry from which I come and can therefore speak on behalf of, is much more likely to exploit a work that is protected by copyright, given the extremely high costs of production, distribution, advertising, et cetera.

One of the points that was made by Congressman Conyers in his introduction really struck home to me this morning. He talked about being in China and the role that the United States has played in trying to get other countries to protect intellectual property. How can we go to other countries and ask them to grant strong copyright protection if we are not going to do it right here at home?

And having promised to be brief, I am going to conclude with just one statement. I think it behooves us to remember that creators and copyright owners will not be the only beneficiaries of copyright term extensions. All Americans will be winners in jobs, in trade, in the balance of payments flowing into the United States from intellectual property.

Thank you.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Saffer follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JUDITH M. SAFFER, ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL, BROADCAST MUSIC, INC.

Legislation has been introduced in both the House and the Senate whose purpose is to extend the term of copyright in the United States by providing for an additional twenty-year term of protection for copyrighted works. The primary provision would extend the term of copyright to life of the author plus 70 years. The proposed legislation is based on the belief that if works copyrighted in the United States are to be properly protected internationally, our term of copyright must coincide with the term of copyright being granted in the European Community (“EC”) and many other countries.

It isn't necessary to outline in detail the many reasons why the current term of copyright is inadequate. I respectfully refer the Committee to the excellent comments submitted by the Coalition of Creators and Copyright Owners to the Copyright Office in 1993, and to the statements presented by the witnesses speaking for the Copyright Coalition at today's hearing.

On behalf of the composers, songwriters and music publishers represented by BMI, I would like to stress that extending the term of copyright will help further the general purpose of the copyright law-to encourage creativity and protect the rights of authors. In the general revision of the Copyright Act of 1976, there was a recognition that copyrighted works should receive protection for the life of the author plus an additional 50 years. At that time, Congress recognized that the prevailing international standard of protection should be adopted by the United States, because it was believed that this extended protection would help foster creativity, which ultimately enures to the benefit of everyone, not just the author.

In addition, there is no doubt that there are significant economic benefits to be obtained by extending the term of copyright. We are all aware that demand for United States' copyrighted materials transcends political boundaries and that all kinds of American intellectual property such as music are exceedingly popular throughout the world. Foreign payments for works of American authorship far exceed American payments for works of foreign authors. Many estimate that United States' copyrighted related industries account for more than 5% of the gross national product and return a trade surplus of billions of dollars. However, a significant amount of this revenue could be put in jeopardy because of the principal referred to as "the rule of the shorter term", which provides that if the duration of protection in a foreign state is shorter than a member state, that member state may limit the protection it gives to works of the foreign state's nationals, to the latter's

citizens only for the United States' shorter term of life plus 50 years, while protecting their own works for life plus 70 years. This might result in depriving United States' authors of 20 years of protection in the international market, eliminating an important source of revenue.

Finally, the most frequently used argument against the United States in trade negotiations is that we are not in a position to chastise other countries for low levels of copyright protection when our own law does not provide the high level of protection in copyright laws of many western countries, particularly those in the EC. In 1976, various arguments were put forth for extending the term of copyright, including the need to bring U.S. law in line with the laws of similar countries. It was also though that extending the term of copyright would allow the United States to be a leader in international copyright, would discourage retaliatory legislation, and would facilitate international trade. Twenty years later, these points are even more valid.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Because we have certainly limited time, I am going to ask our members to be very brief in their questioning and certainly no more than 5 minutes, and that will be enforced.

One thing that I wanted to ask, we have a voluntary film labeling program that is working to some extent. The film label in the bill doesn't seem to be satisfactory to many of the others because it is too long. If we would bring representatives of the motion picture association and the various groups that are represented here that are concerned with it together in a hearing room in Washington and let you start the negotiations and see that it is carried out, is it at all possible you could come to terms?

You are both making money from the same thing, the sale of the same films, everything else. Is it possible to come to any kind of an agreement on this without having legislation passed that enforces it? We can put it into legislation if you can come to an agreement. But is it possible for you to come to agreement? Any comments on that?

Ms. COOLIDGE. We tried. We did. And we couldn't get anywhere. Mr. MOORHEAD. Over how long and under what circumstances? Ms. COOLIDGE. There were several meetings. I was in contact with our representatives, but I was not involved in the meetings themselves. But I know that they were very frustrating. And, also, they did not represent everyone involved. In other words, the artists were represented, but all the producers and distributors were not 100 percent represented.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Would you give us a list of those people who you think should be involved?

Ms. COOLIDGE. Boy, would that be a big list. That is sort of the point I tried to make. One of the points that I tried to make is that this goes on and on and on. It is a giant pyramid of people that it affects.

And, second, the producers claimed that they could deliver certain people and they didn't.

And, third, we do not represent the nonunion artists who are working in this country. There are a large number of film artists who do not, for whatever reason, either the size or scale of their work, are not members of the unions; and we cannot represent them.

So it is a very large issue, to say nothing of the fact that in the end the entire concept, as you can see by our testimony here today

Mr. EVES. Mr. Chairman, the view the coalition takes and the view our organization takes, is that there is a vast difference between a Government-mandated label and a voluntary label. I think it would be difficult to point to very many programs that exist today that have achieved a 90-percent compliance rate, as has this labeling program in barely 20 months that it has been in existence. Directly to your question, I think that there clearly has been a responsiveness on the part of the motion picture industry to the concerns that have been raised here, and this is why a labeling program was developed.

Now, people will quarrel over the precise language, but certainly we are willing, and I know the MPAA is willing, to sit down and continue discussions to see if we can come to some agreement on that; and we are very willing to do it.

We certainly do not want to see a disparaging label that is harmful for our business and would seem to be designed to tell people that the product that they are buying is an inferior kind of product, and we have concerns about that.

One of the points that was made in the testimony a few minutes ago was that the labeling program that we have in existence right now has not created any economic hardship on the industry. I agree completely with that point; but that is because it is a clear, unambiguous, informative label without taking an arbitrary or a disparaging kind of position with regard to the film.

As to your question, we are certainly willing to do that.

Mr. MOORHEAD. That voluntary label, if it were mandatory, is that something that would be satisfactory to you?

Ms. COOLIDGE. No. Because although he may say it is unambiguous, we disagree. I don't think it is clear. It is not a clear label, and it is not unambiguous. For example, what does edited for content imply? If what it implies is true, meaning that it has sex and violence removed, that is actually not even involved in this bill. That editing is something that we do as part of our contract when we deliver a film made for motion pictures to a television screen. So that isn't even a part of it.

Second, formatted for your television screen. That sounds like the companies are doing the consumer a favor rather than removing 50 percent of the image from the picture. So we do have a very different opinion about how does the cinematographer or director feel about having 50 percent of the image removed from the picture.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Would you be willing to sit down one more time and see if some linguists among the group can come up with something that could be agreed to by everybody?

Ms. COOLIDGE. Well, I have to tell you, Mr. Chairman, that we have been-this request has been made to us several times; and we did sit down one more time and one more time and one more time again. So I don't know how to further answer you.

Well-I mean, the problem is we know what the problems are. We know that the producers, when we sit down and discuss together, will not consider the idea of the creative authors having an objection. We know that. There doesn't seem to be any way around it. And the authors, on the other hand, are extremely emphatic in