VIEWS OF HON. JOSHUA EILBERG IN DISSENT TO COPYRIGHT LEGISLATION, SENATE 22, REPORTED FROM HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, AUGUST 27, 1976
INTRODUCTION
Recognizing the complexity of the subject of copyright revision and the long and careful labor of the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice and its Chairman, Robert Kastenmeier of Wisconsin, I respectfully feel constrained, notwithstanding, to register my dissent to the provisions of Senate 22 governing cable television copyright royalty payments.
The Committee bill, Senate 22, in the nature of a substitute, acts to approve major changes in the Nation’s 67 year-old copyright law, which originated in 1909 prior to the development of radio, television, and cable television. The Senate already has passed its version of this copyright revision legislation which now has been pending before the Congress for more than a decade.
My vote was the only dissenting voice in the full House Judiciary Committee’s 27–1 vote because of my opposition to the bill’s cable television provisions.
Sections 111, 501, and 801 of S. 22, in the nature of a substitute, have as their purpose:
- (1) The imposition of a copyright royalty fee on the cable antenna function;
- (2) Authorizing a Copyright Royalty Commission to make adjustments in the rates (percentages) provided in Section 111(d)(2)(B) to reflect monetary inflation or deflation or changes in the average rates charged subscribers to maintain the real constant dollar level of the fee per subscriber; and
- (3) Treating a television station as a beneficial owner, if an infringement of a work he is licensed to transmit occurs in his local service area, giving standing to sue to a primary transmitter (any broadcast station) whose transmission is altered and giving any broadcast station (AM, FM, TV) within whose local service area the secondary transmission occurs standing to sue.
I
I cannot concur in the cable television provisions of this bill which are discriminatory against the non-metropolitan areas with fewer television stations and in favor of the large metropolitan areas which have the benefit of the diversity of network and independent television stations and programs.
I see no excuse with today’s technology to impose higher copyright fees on communities because of the accident of their location and the difficulties of securing satisfactory television reception from existing television stations, nor can I concur in a bill which discriminates
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