MPAA FILES AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF COPYRIGHT TERM EXTENSION ACT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Rich Taylor
(202) 293-1966
Washington, D.C. August 5, 2002 - The Motion Picture Association of America will today file an amicus brief in Eldred v. Ashcroft supporting the U.S. government's defense of copyright term extension legislation in a case that will be argued before the Supreme Court on October 9.
In 1998, after several years of careful deliberation and debate, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act ("CTEA"), which, among other things, added 20 years to the term of U.S. copyrights, to match copyright extension in the European Union, both for new works and for works already created.
"The Constitution is plain and clear that Congress has the authority to set copyright terms," explained MPAA President and CEO Jack Valenti. "The opponents of the CTEA failed to make an impress on Congress during the original debate on this law. Having gotten nowhere with Congress, they have now dressed up their policy arguments as constitutional ones. The CTEA keeps creators and copyright owners in this nation on even footing with their counterparts in other parts of the world and provides incentives for the creation of new works and the continued preservation and restoration of older ones.
"The copyright community of the United States is an awesome engine of economic growth in this country. Additionally, the United States' continued world leadership in industries founded on creative talent depends in large part on the wisdom and support of our copyright system. The copyright industries account for more than 5% of our Gross Domestic Product, last year contributing more than $500 billion to the U.S. economy. Over the past 20 years, these industries have created new jobs at three times the rate of the rest of the U.S. economy. Additionally, the core copyright industries provide a surplus balance of trade at a time when our nation is hemorrhaging with trade deficits.
The MPAA's brief details several reasons why the petitioners' claim should be rejected, including:
- In uniformly extending the copyright term, the CTEA follows a long and consistent practice, running back to the first federal copyright statute of 1790. Throughout our history, each time Congress has set the copyright term, it has changed the term for existing as well as new works.
- Nothing in the text or purpose of the Constitution's Copyright Clause (Article I, section 8) supports the petitioners' view. The Court has always interpreted that Clause broadly to give Congress the discretion it needs to build an effective copyright regime.
- Structuring our copyright laws effectively requires balancing a variety of interests, making predictive judgments about the development of the national and international economies, and responding to changing technologies. These are the sorts of judgments to which the Court has, and properly should, give deference to legislators.
The CTEA's term extension will, as the Copyright Clause puts it "promote the Progress of Science," that is, advance the richness of our culture in several ways, including spurring the creation of new works, both by enabling copyright owners to raise the money needed to finance new works (especially risky, capital-intensive ones such as movies) and by encouraging the making of derivative works. CTEA also encourages the preservation and restoration of older works that might otherwise be lost, notably older films such as the classics of Hollywood's golden age. Additionally, the CTEA brings the U.S. copyright term more in line with the term in the European Union countries, thus putting our authors and creative industries on a more even competitive footing with their European counterparts.
"We are confident that the Supreme Court of the United States will recognize and apply the unambiguous language of the Copyright Clause, which gives power to Congress to make judgments about copyright terms," concluded Valenti. "The CTEA is a law that is in all of America's interest - both as an incentive to invest and create and also as an engine to drive our nation to even grander creative heights.
"Studio and MPAA counsel worked with Seth Waxman, a former Solicitor General of the United States, Randy Moss, Jonathan Cedarbaum, Ed DuMont and Neil Richards of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in preparing the brief. The MPAA's full brief will be posted at www.mpaa.org.  |
