[The prepared statement of Ms. Barrett follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARY ELLIN BARRETT, DAUGHTER OF IRVING BERLIN First I want to thank Representative Carlos Moorhead for introducing H.R. 989, the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1995. All children of authors, not to mention authors themselves, should be enormously grateful to him. Obviously I, and those I presume to speak for, have a personal stake here and that basically is what I'm going to talk about... the question of what is fair and right for the creative people of this country, and their heirs. Because of my father's long life and young beginnings, his songs - most notably "Alexander's Ragtime Band" - began falling into the public domain more than a decade ago, before he himself died. At that time his daughters were in their forties and fifties and his grandchildren (all but one) in their teens and twenties. Every year now more of those songs he hoped to leave as a legacy to those children and grandchildren become public property. The past ten years have seen the loss of, among others. "When I Lost You". "When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam". "Play A Simple Melody". "I Love A Piano", "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody". "You'd Be Surprised", all still money makers. There is also "Oh How I Hate to Get Up In the Morning" which, like all my father's wartime army show songs belongs to the God Bless America Fund. (But that is a whole other story, the rich royalties he has given away to his country) Next year "All By Myself", "Everybody Step", "Say It With Music" will go, and so it will continue year by year. Yet the basic principal of copyright duration is that protection should exist for the life of the author and two succeeding generations. My father began young but had his children relatively late something that is happening more and more today. 75 years from registration of pre-1978 works our situation - doesn't come close to offering that traditional protection. Nor, given today's life expectancy, does "life plus 50 years" give proper coverage. So authors and their families will indeed suffer if works fall into the public domain while still commercially viable. Someone - not the public will be making money out of another person's property And there are many families much more at risk than the heirs of Irving Berlin - those Honorable Carlos Moorhead July 7, 1995 I urge you to extend copyright in this country as soon as possible, not only because of the economic considerations involved but also because of the lack of control that occurs when copyrights are permitted to fall into the public domain during the lives of the first generations of authors' heirs. The musical "SHOW BOAT" is still playing to hundreds of thousands of people throughout this country and the world, and yet it will soon fall into the public domain if copyright is not extended in this country, thereby ending our ability to control the quality of its many productions. Since my father died fifty years ago this year, his works will also begin to fall into the public domain in foreign countries unless we extend copyright so that foreign countries who give protection for seventy years after death to their own authors will grant that same protection to United States authors. I thank you again for the support that you have shown not only for the works of my father but also for the works of all of those whose work during this century has contributed to our American musical and literary heritage. [The prepared statement of Ms. Barrett follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARY ELLIN BARRETT, DAUGHTER OF IRVING BERLIN First I want to thank Representative Carlos Moorhead for introducing H.R. 989, the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1995. All children of authors, not to mention authors themselves, should be enormously grateful to him. Obviously I, and those I presume to speak for, have a personal stake here and that basically is what I'm going to talk about... the question of what is fair and right for the creative people of this country, and their heirs. Because of my father's long life and young beginnings, his songs most notably "Alexander's Ragtime Band" - began falling into the public domain more than a decade ago, before he himself died. At that time his daughters were in their forties and fifties and his grandchildren (all but one) in their teens and twenties. Every year now more of those songs he hoped to leave as a legacy to those children and grandchildren become public property. The past ten years have seen the loss of, among others, "When I Lost You". "When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam", "Play A Simple Melody". "I Love A Piano”, “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody". "You'd Be Surprised”, all still money makers. There is also "Oh How I Hate to Get Up In the Morning" which, like all my father's wartime army show songs belongs to the God Bless America Fund. (But that is a whole other story, the rich royalties he has given away to his country). Next year “All By Myself”, “Everybody Step”, “Say It With Music" will go, and so it will continue year by year. Yet the basic principal of copyright duration is that protection should exist for the life of the author and two succeeding generations. My father began young but had his children relatively late something that is happening more and more today. 75 years from registration of pre-1978 works our situation doesn't come close to offering that traditional protection. Nor, given today's life expectancy, does "life plus 50 years" give proper coverage. So authors and their families will indeed suffer if works fall into the public domain while still commercially viable. Someone - not the public will be making money out of another person's property. And there are many families much more at risk than the heirs of Irving Berlin - those And with the new uniform term of copyright adopted by the European Union - "life plus 70" - there will be further attrition. Because of the "rule of the shorter term", American authors will not benefit from the 20 year extension abroad unless we enact similar legislation here. (In the case of pre-1978 works, it must become 95 years from registration). This, of course, brings up the much broader balance of trade issue. Intellectual property, I'm told, is America's second largest export. It won't only be individual composers, lyricists, film makers, playwrights, writer of fiction and fact, who will suffer but American trade as a whole. That all important question is one for trade experts to address. I am not an economist. My question, as the child of a creator, as a person who values the arts (and as a working writer), is simply this: why is my country, so protective of other kinds of property, so reluctant to recognize the rights of the creative variety? Non-creative, non-intellectual, property can be handed down indefinitely, as long as each generation pays its death taxes. Land rich in natural resources, businesses based on manufacturing, clothing, cars, liquor, fortunes in real estate, etc etc etc, can be supporting a fourth, fifth, sixth generation. Why shouldn't businesses based on creativity have a similar right or at least be guaranteed protection for the life of the author and two succeeding generations - which is what this bill, if passed, conceivably might do. This as a question that troubles me greatly, beyond my own immediate interests, and those of every heir and living author who shares my gratitude for what you, Representative Moorhead, have proposed. Mr. MOORHEAD. Well, thank you very much. Opponents of copyright term extension point out that there are a number of benefits to the public domain that will be lost or postponed as a result of this legislation. How do you respond? Is there any public benefit in extending the copyright? Mr. JONES. I'm sorry, I didn't get the question. Mr. MOORHEAD. Opponents say that term extension will deprive the general public of certain of their benefits or at least postpone them, as a result of this legislation. How do you respond and is there any public benefit in extending the copyright? Mr. JONES. Well, the public benefit is copyrighted works usually are more available. The cost to the public stays exactly the same, and, also, it allows the estates to be involved in receiving the benefits of what the creators have left as their legacy, but the public I think will get more efficient programming possibilities and have access to people that are really concerned with all of the accouterments that it takes to make a piece of music become exposed and to grow. To me, copyright is in many ways like creative real estate, and it depends on depending on the song-you were speaking about economics earlier. When we did the album "Thriller," the song, the value of the songs on that album to the various songwriters there were nine songs in that. The songs were worth about $1.6 million each in terms of just each individual writer. That's just with one album. Mr. MOORHEAD. One of the things that people have been concerned about was that our works in Europe are not protected for the same length of time as we would protect the works of European authors in the United States. Is this a substantial economic switch as far as we're concerned? As far as the balance of trade, does it give the Europeans and other nations a big advantage of us Mr. JONES. A tremendous advantage. I'd cite examples. When records in America like "Thus Spracht Zarathustra," Richard Strauss was adapted because my teacher always told me that the melody is what lingers on, and that's always the power of a song. Even though they changed the rhythms throughout the ages, when "Spracht Zarathustra" was released as a single in the United States, it was public domain. And when it was released in Europe, they still had to pay the estate of the Strauss estate for that particular piece. They have a tremendous edge on us. I lived in Europe for a while. I was a member of SACEM. It's a sister of ASCAP, and BM is the sister agency of BMI. Michel LeGrande is one of my closest friends, and I'm embarrassed to have a conversation with him about our various setups. Mr. MOORHEAD. A while ago, the discussion centered on what the benefit would be for us in taxes, but there is also a benefit, is there not as we bring more money into the United States, it percolates down in jobs and in investment, and so forth. So whether it gets into taxes or not, we have a real benefit in money coming into our country instead of going out, as it does with the purchase of so many foreign cars and the foreign equipment, and so forth. We |