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In August 1955, Congress authorized the formation of a Panel of Consultants on General Revision of the Copyright Law under the chairmanship of the register of copyrights, and the Copyright Office undertook a series of basic studies of the major substantive issues involved in revision.

At the same time began what has become a seemingly endless series of meetings and discussions with representatives of virtually every interest group affected by the copyright law.

By now these discussions, which have been as valuable as they have been time consuming, must literally run into the thousands, and they are still going on.

The study phase of the current revision program began almost exactly 20 years ago, in 1955. It was supposed to take 3 years, but it took about 6. It produced 35 fairly comprehensive studies covering most of what we thought at the time were the substantive issues in copyright revision.

These were published, together with a large body of comments from the Panel of Consultants, and I am proud to say that they are all still in print.

The culmination of this effort was the publication, in 1961, of the 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on General Revision of the Copyright Law. The Register's report was the first of many major contributions to the general revision program by Abraham L. Kaminstein, Mr. Fisher's successor as Register of Copyrights. The purpose of the reports, as Mr. Kaminstein said in his 1962 annual report:

"Was to furnish a tangible core around which opinions and conclusions could crystalize—to achieve the widest possible agreement on basic principles before proceeding to draft a revised copyright law.”

The report attempted to pinpoint the major issues in revision, summarize the present law with respect to each of them, analyze alternative solutions, and present specific recommendations.

The Register's report succeeded very well in clarifying the issues and in focusing the discussions on them, but some of its most fundamental recommendations proved more controversial than anyone in the Copyright Office had expected.

In particular, the Register's proposal for copyright to begin with "public dissemination" and to last for a first term of 28 years, renewable for a second term of 48 years, provoked a flood of opposition; there was strong support for a single Federal copyright system with protection commencing upon the creation of a work and ending 50 years after the author's death.

A series of meetings of the Panel of Consultants on General Revisions, after the publication of the Register's report, was held between September 1961, and March 1962, at which all of the report's recommendations were discussed in an increasingly tense atmosphere.

The heated arguments at these and other meetings actually stalled the revision program for several months and brought it to a genuine crisis in the late summer and fall of 1962. It became apparent that, if the entire project were not to founder, some method for advancing and considering alternative recommendations would have to be found. In other words, the Copyright Office had to reconsider its position.

In November 1962, the Register announced that the Copyright Office was prepared to change its position on some debatable questions and to draft alternative language on others. He indicated that the Office was prepared to revise its recommendations concerning "public dissemination" and the retention of common law protection, and that, "at least one alternative version of our draft bill will adopt the lifeplus basis for computing the term-in conjunction with a system of notice, deposit, and registration that we consider essential."

The Register also announced that he would send preliminary drafts of statutory language to the members of an expanded Panel of Consultants on General Revision for their comments, and that he would convene another series of meetings on the preliminary draft.

The process of preparing draft language for circulation occupied practically all of 1963, and included a total of eight meetings of the Panel of Consultants.

The development of this preliminary draft proved to be a difficult but enormously productive phase of the program. The procedure adopted provided a motive and a forum for detailed, critical scrutiny of the language and substance of a new copyright statute by representatives of nearly all of the groups affected.

It also created an atmosphere of cooperative effort that has survived various stresses and strains and has continued to grow in breadth and depth.

The preliminary draft of the general revision bill, that had reached completion at the beginning of 1964, was never intended to be a final product. The next 6 months were devoted to compiling, analyzing, and synthesizing all of the comments received on the draft, to making substantive decisions and changes on the basis of these comments, and to preparing a complete, section-by-section revision of the bill. The draft of the bill that emerged from this process was prepared entirely within the Copyright Office without collaboration or consultation with any private groups or individuals involved. The introduction of the 1964 draft in July 1964, marked the end of the drafting phase of the revision program and the opening of the legislative phase.

Like the preliminary draft on which it was based, the 1964 bill was not intended as a finished product, but as a focal point for further comments and suggestions. In August 1964, a full week of detailed discussions of the bill showed that a great deal of progress had been made, but that still further revisions would be necessary before legislative hearings could profitably begin.

During the fall and winter of 1961-65, the Copyright Office reviewed and analyzed the many oral and written comments on the bill and prepared another complete revision.

At the beginning of the 89th Congress, on February 4, 1965, Representative Celler introduced the 1965 General Revision bill and the Copyright Office spent the next 3 months preparing a supplement to the 1961 Register's Report. The supplementary report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law: 1965 Revision bill which was published in May 1965, set forth the reasons for changing a number of recommendations in the 1961 report and clarified the meaning of the provisions of the 1965 bill. Publication of the supplementary report coincided with the open

ing of congressional hearings on the bill. Over a period of more than 3 months, between May 26, 1965 and September 2, 1965, 22 days of public hearings were held before your subcommittee, under the objective and dedicated chairmanship of the man who is still your chairman, Robert W. Kastenmeier.

A total of 163 witnesses, representing an extraordinarily wide range of public and private interests, appeared to testify. The record of those 1965 hearings comprises nearly 2,000 pages of printed text, including not only the oral transcript but also more than 150 written

statements.

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee under the chairmanship of John McClellan of Arkansas, held brief hearings on the Revision bill in August 1965, but delayed a full series pending the conclusion of the intense activity in the House subcommittee.

Several significant factors with respect to the general revision program emerged from the 1965 hearings. Most obvious were the sharp controversies remaining to be settled on some old issuessuch as the jukebox exemption, the royalty rate to be paid under the compulsory license for recording music, and the manufacturing requirements with respect to English-language books and periodicalsand on some relatively new issues such as fair use, and the reproduetion of copyrighted works for educational and research purposes, the liability of educational broadcasters and similar transmitters, and the status of community antenna television systems under the Copyright law.

Aside from the need to work out further accommodations on several critical issues, the most serious problem arising from the 1965 hearing was how to organize the massive contents of the record in a way that would overlook no significant comment or suggestion but that still would form a comprehensible basis for decisionmaking. Let me say a personal word about those 51 days of subcommittee meetings, since they were very significant.

Working in close collaboration, the Copyright Office and the House Judiciary Committee counsel prepared summaries of every statement that had been made, and then divided the entire corpus of the hearings into 10 general areas: Subject matter of copyright, ownership, duration, notice and registration, manufacturing and importa tion requirements, community antenna systems and other secondary transmissions, jukebox performances, compulsory license for phonorecords, educational copying and fair use, and educational broadca-ting and other performing rights.

Each subject was then divided into subtopics, under which were listed every issue raised at the hearings.

The "experiment in legislative technique." as it has been called. proved effective. I think the effectiveness will become more and more apparent as you progress in 1975. It enabled the House Judiciary Subcommittee, in its deliberations of the bill, to consider each issue in context, to weigh the arguments for and against it, and to arrive at reasoned decisions.

Meeting regularly, usually twice a week, from February through September 1966, the subcommittee held 51 executive sessions, all of which were attended by representatives of the Copyright Office. Examining each issue in depth and then redrafting the pertinent sec

We all know that the entire bill reached an impasse in the Senate because of the inability to solve the issue of cable television. I must confess that in 1968, recognizing that nothing was going to move unless somehow the CATV issue could be solved or dealt with separately, I gave in to some despair.

Testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights. I said that I had been musing on Yeats' poem, "To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing." Nothing much to encour age me happened for a long time.

Certainly I feel no such despair today.

At the last session of Congress, the Senate passed the revision bill by a margin of 70-1, and every indication seems to point to a consensus in that body that this is a measure whose time, at long last, has come.

Although insufficient time remained in the last session for House consideration, the status of the general revision legislation was one of the points covered in your subcommittee's hearings on November 26, 1974. on S. 3976, a short bill whose enactment effective December 31. 1971, appears to pave the way for favorable action in both Houses during the current Congress.

I should like to close my statement by offering some personal o'ervations based on years of involvement with copyright revision. I should like to recall the constructive spirit of the 1965 hearings for I fervently hope that they will be repeated in the work you begin today. Nine years ago, Mr. Chairman, your subcommittee met for 51 execu tive sessions, over a 7-month period, to prepare a bill for the full Judiciary Committee.

Congressmen, members of a busy subeorumittee, were willing and glad to spend an extraordinary amount of time and effort on a bal that could not have meant much to them politically, that could not gain them any votes. What made this extraordinary effort possible, and in de specessful, was the prevailing spirit of compromise-construetiv › and reasonable, rather than destructive and extreme. I called it An Experiment in Legislative Technique." It was the most exhilarat ing experience of my legal career.

All of us are special pleaders, no matter how moral we feel our case to be. For my part, I make no bones about favoring authors, composers, and artists, But I know, nevertheless, that everyone must make soma compromise. My experience convinces me that there are no easy shortouts in copyright, and no side can afford the luxury of a comple to victory. Neither can we embrace categorical solutions; what they possess in simplicity, they sacrifice in or l ́nary justice. What is needed is a responsible and considered compromise, for only such a compromise w 11 best serve the intere ts of all.

This will requre statesman ship of the highest or ler, and I hope you will feel the personal satisfaction that cores with a job well done. Thank you, Mr. Charn.in.

M». KÄSTEN MEPR. Thank you, Mr. Kamirst in, for a most elorient and personal statement on a subject ny regard as inpersonal.

I am almost sorry, however, to mention that in 1966 we had 51 executive sesscops over a 7 month period. You will detect some trepidation among 1 V subcommittee members who hover ot been through that experience. Laughter.)

Much of that work will not have to be redone, I expect. Perhaps this is not the time, as I introdu eti. „ext witness, to commend people

'efore our task is completed for indeed historically one day I am sure that the names of Fisher, Kaminstein, and Ringer will, in terms of arght and its history of this country, have an extraordinary place. For my part, legislatively, I would like to recall that the chairman of te fui committee, Mr. Celler, who served Congress so well for so y years, has always felt so deeply about and has been a very great aten of copyright.

For the legislative standpoint I think he also deserves very special

tion.

1. any event. I would like to call on the person on whom we are going sve to lean heavily, not only this morning but in days to come, in silva; g whatever of the issues still remain.

We would be very pleased to hear from our Register of Copyrights, M- Barbara Ringer.

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MS RINGER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am accomPy Doroty Shiader, general coun el of the Copyright Office, I hope will get me out of trouble if I get into it.

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