2
Copyright legislation involves a balancing of many interests: the public, authors of unpublished works, and authors seeking to use portions of other authors’ unpublished works. The goal of H.R. 4412 is to direct the courts to strike the correct balance on the facts before it, free from any per se rules.
Hearings
Proposals to amend the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act were made in the 101st Congress.[1] A joint hearing on those proposals was held by the House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and Administration of Justice, Committee on the Judiciary and the Senate Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks, Committee on the Judiciary, on July 11, 1990. Testimony was received from the following witnesses: William F. Patry, Policy Planning Advisor to the Register of Copyrights; a panel of federal judges consisting of the Honorable James L. Oakes, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the Honorable Roger J. Miner, Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Honorable Pierre N. Leval, United States District Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; authors Taylor Branch and J. Anthony Lukas; a panel consisting of Floyd Abrams, Esq., Barbara Ringer (former Register of Copyrights) and Jonathan W. Lubell, Esq.; and, a panel from the computer industry consisting of A.G.W. Biddle (Computer and Communications Industry Association) and James M. Burger (CBEMA and Software Publishers Association).
In the 102d Congress, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Moorhead introduced H.R. 2372. H.R. 2372 consisted of three titles, title I of which contained a provision on fair use of unpublished works.[2] The Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration held two days of hearings on title I of H.R. 2372 on May 30 and June 6, 1991. Testimony was received on May 30th from the following witnesses: a panel representing publishing interests (Floyd Abrams, Esq., Authors Guild; Kati Marton, an author; Mark Morrill, Esq., Association of American Publishers; and Kenneth M. Vittor, Esq., Magazine Publishers of America); and a panel representing computer companies (James M. Burger, Esq., Apple Computer, Inc., and Wilham Neukom, Esq., Software Publishers Association). Testimony was received on June 6th from: Scott Turow, Esq., and author; Register of Copyrights Ralph Oman; a panel consisting of Edward J. Black, Esq. (Computer and Communications Industry Association); August W. Steinhilber (Educators’ Ad Hoc Committee on Copyright Law); Professor Shira Perlmutter (Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law); and Robert C. Waggoner (Video Monitoring Services of America, Inc.).
Title I of H.R. 2372 was deleted when the bill was marked up by the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration on October 1, 1991.
Committee Vote
On April 30, 1992, a reporting quorum being present, the Committee ordered H.R. 4412 reported to the full House by voice vote, as amended.
Legislative History
H.R. 4412 was introduced on March 5, 1992 by Mr. Hughes, Mr. Moorhead, Mr. Synar, Mr. Coble, Mr. Glickman, and Mr. Sangmeister, and was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary on March 9, 1992. Based on the hearing record developed during the 101st and 102d Congresses, the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration marked up H.R. 4412 on March 12, 1992.
On April 30, 1992, the full Committee marked up H.R. 4412, and, a quorum of Members being present, approved the amendment in the nature of a substitute and favorably reported the bill by voice vote.- ↑ H.R. 4263 (Kastenmeier), S. 2370 (Simon).
- ↑ The remaining two titles, dealing with copyright automatic renewal and the National Film Preservation Board, were subsequently passed on June 4, 1992 as part of S. 756.
