I come here today on behalf of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), of which I am a National Board member and the Co-Chair of the DGA Social Responsibility Task Force.

Founded in 1936 by the most prominent directors of the period, the Directors Guild today represents over 12,800 directors and members of the directorial team who work in feature film, television, commercials, documentaries and news. The DGA's mission is to protect the creative and economic rights of directors and the directorial team — working to advance our artistic freedom and ensure fair compensation for our work.

I am here today, as a filmmaker, a parent, and a representative of the directors who create the movies that many of you have seen and I hope enjoyed. We are here to share with you our great concern about giving someone the legal ability to alter, in any way they choose, for any purpose, and for profit, the content of a film that we have made, which carries our names, and which is associated with one of us. When this is done without directors' knowledge or authorization, and without the knowledge or authorization studios who own the copyrights in these films, consumers are mislead and the artistic and economic rights of directors are harmed.

The Role of the Director In The Filmmaking Process

Film is truly an indigenous American art form, and the work of filmmakers — in collaboration with other creative artists in our industry – has documented, reflected upon, and portrayed the American experience for almost 100 years. With no disrespect to other great art forms, we think it is fair to say that motion pictures played a very unique role in popular culture during the 20th Century, and they continue to be enjoyed daily by billions of people around the world. Those of us who work in film feel fortunate and privileged to earn our living contributing our talents to a craft we love.

Directors have to reflect on the realities of life and determine if, how, and in what way they might put them into their film. The director, and his or her collaborators—the writer, the actor, the cinematographer, the art director, the film editor—make these decisions constantly. Choices are made before the production begins, during shooting, and in the post-production room where the film is edited.

Despite this collaborative process, it is the director who is associated with the film in the end. The director receives the most prominent, final credit in a film, indicating to the audience that the film was "Directed By" him or her. But, as the members of this Subcommittee are aware, under American law, directors do not have a copyright interest in the films they create. The copyright is held by the production company or studio, and the director's contribution is a "work for hire."

Instead, the rights and interests of the director in a film are protected by a collective bargaining agreement between the DGA and the studios and production companies. That collective bargaining agreement – along with the specific director services agreement negotiated for each film — protects the creative rights of directors, including the director's right to make the first edit or "cut" of a film that is delivered to the studios:

The Director shall be responsible for the presentation of his or her cut of the motion picture (herein referred to as the "Director's Cut") and it is understood that his or her assignment is not complete until he or she has presented the Director's Cut to the Employer ...

[N]o one other than the Director may supervise the editing of the first cut of the film following completion of the editor's assembly...

No one shall be allowed to interfere with the Director of the film during the period of the Director's Cut.

In addition, many directors receive even greater control over the editing of their motion pictures, and earn the much-coveted position of being a "final cut" director. These directors, through their creative and commercial success, earn the right to have the final say over the form of their film, by making the final edit of their movies. These much sought-after rights are bargained for separately by individual directors who achieve this status.

Directors specifically plan for the fact that their movies may be shown outside of the intended theatrical context. Directors shoot and prepare alternate footage and audio to create alternative versions which remain true to each director's vision, but which will fit the needs of the particular airline or broadcast network. Directors do this because they understand that airline and television versions are often viewed by audiences not originally intended for the theatrical version.

We want to make sure this Subcommittee understands how motion pictures are edited for television or airline viewing. That too is specifically governed by the DGA's collective bargaining agreement, which provides directors with the right to edit movies for television and airline versions (when the studio is doing the editing), and in all other cases, requires that the director be consulted on the editing of films for television or airline use.

Directors put their full vision and often years of hard work into the creation of a film. That film is not only their vision, but it carries their name and reflects on their reputation. No matter how many warnings or disclaimers someone puts on the film, it still has the director's name on it. So directors have great passion about protecting their work against unauthorized editing, and an abiding belief that contracts and the law will prevent others from illegally profiting from or altering their work.

Unauthorized Editing of Motion Pictures Does Great Damage To The Creative Rights and Reputations of Directors

Because directors and their names are inextricably and prominently linked with the movies they direct, the conduct of companies that sell unauthorized software filters or edited versions of movies is particularly harmful to directors. These companies are undoing, undermining and superseding the artistic work in which a director has invested a great deal of effort, and become closely associated by the public. Removing scenes and dialogue from films interferes with the story a director is trying to tell, and in so doing, can take away from the narrative structure and overall vision that audiences associate with a director. The director's reputation is likely to suffer when people viewing the film may believe they are watching a version of the film that has been edited and authorized for release by the director.

Currently there are at least ten companies in this business – three of which are electronic editing companies. Together they are today making hundreds of unauthorized versions of movies. So for example, there may be ten unauthorized versions of my 2000 film Proof of Life.

To illustrate the problem, here are a few concrete examples of what these products have done to directors' artistic visions and the power of the story directors seek to tell.

Despite the utter centrality of the kidnapping to the story, I was amazed to learn that one company, without any authorization or contractual right to alter the film, removed the entire kidnapping scene when it created a filter specifically designed to alter the viewing of this film. It is important to note that this scene was shown on television and airline versions virtually in its entirety, with only eleven seconds removed. These type of minor, authorized edits are acceptable, because, as the film's director, I agreed to them for a particular use.

In this case, the company had no authorization from me or Warner Bros., yet they unilaterally removed the entire kidnapping scene and altered my film in a way that was extremely harmful to the basic telling of the story. It also was harmful to the way viewers perceive me as a director. This unauthorized version may lead viewers to believe Taylor Hackford directs movies that just don't make sense. Let me explain why.

First, the subject of kidnapping for ransom is pivotal to the film, and as the film's director, I went to great lengths to portray it as realistically as possible. In the theatrical, airline, and television version of the film, the audience sees how the abduction was carried out, and witnesses the organizational skill of the abductors and the depth of their cruelty. All of these essential details, and the overall tension and desperation of the scene, have been ripped from the film.

Second, the kidnapping scene, which takes place early in the movie, establishes the foundation for the entire story that follows, and is crucial to the overall dramatic purposes of the film. This scene enables the audience to empathize with an ordinary person, who is driving to work thinking about everyday problems on the job and at home. This "everyman" suddenly is wrenched from his daily life and plunged into a nightmare that he had never imagined possible. Removing this scene in its entiretyleaves the audience unable to understand the context and meaning of the story, and renders the audience unable to connect emotionally to the character's plight. In short, removing the early kidnapping scene, from a movie about a kidnapping, changes the basic nature of the movie.

In the book, those characters face tension between their romantic desires and their moral responsibilities, but ultimately they do have an affair. But Mr. Redford explained that he chose a different resolution to this central tension in the story. In doing so, he made the characters' ultimate parting far more bittersweet. To portray their difficult decision not to give in to their desires, Mr. Redford played up the romantic tension, and the characters' ultimate decision to resist this temptation. That tension is the crux of their entire relationship, and the centerpiece to this tension and build-up is a kiss in the moonlight. It is simply a kiss, but the company that edited this film removed the scene. Mr. Redford explained that, as a result, the rest of the movie really makes no sense. And worse than that, this company made their own moral determination and substituted it for Mr. Redford's very specific, calculated, and poignant artistic choice. Simply put, taking that scene out of the movie vitiated the moral determination that Mr. Redford already had made as the director of the film.

These are just two examples of the effect that unauthorized editing has on directors and their artistic vision for motion pictures. While it is bad enough to have the stories severely weakened, it is simply wrong for these companies to profit by removing content from films without the permission of directors or the studios who are the copyright holders.

Directors take great care in making motion pictures and are faced with a multitude of creative choices during the filmmaking process. Moreover, for many movies, directors also work hard during production and editing to create alternative versions that are suitable for television and airlines. And unlike these companies who simply cut, skip, or mute the films, directors have tools at their disposal to add alternate scenes, takes, and dialog to the airline and television versions. These tools allow directors to create alternate versions of their films that remain true to each director's vision, so that in appropriate circumstances these films can be shown to audiences for whom they were not originally intended.

Despite this fact, I have seen a version of Schindler's List heavily edited by one of the film editing companies. That version substantially removes a critical scene in which Jews disembark from the trains and are rounded into a concentration camp. With Steven Spielberg's masterful touch, this scene captured the Nazis' highly regimented approach to their evil deeds. With this scene largely removed, the edited version leaves viewers with a sanitized, inaccurate view of the worst abuses of Nazism. This is certainly a depiction that my colleague Steven Spielberg did not have in mind when he made his movie about the Holocaust.

Legislation

The DGA understands that some members of this Subcommittee are concerned about the current dispute between movie filtering companies and the motion picture industry over the legality of altering films. We understand that there is consideration of pursuing legislation that would amend the copyright laws to deal with this. At least one draft that has been circulating would permit software that enables unauthorized skipping and muting of any digital version of a copyrighted matter. That legislation would enable these companies to do this for their own commercial purposes, without the director's knowledge, and in a way that interferes with the director's artistic vision for his or her films.

This kind of activity is precisely why our founding fathers envisioned copyright protection for creative works, and why Congress has created a system that protects those works. Amending the copyright laws to authorize these products would allow companies to ignore copyright protections created by Congress, and to destroy someone else's property rights and reputation, all in the name of profit. This is particularly troubling in a digital era, where creative works can so easily be destroyed or distorted by others. That is the very reason that copyright protection is fundamental to artists and to consumers, who assume when they see a film that it is the one the director intended to make and present under his or her name. Never was this protection more important that today, when a motion picture can so easily be illegally copied, edited, and transmitted to millions of people through digital means.

The DGA's Social Responsibility Task Force – which I co-chair – has been active in promoting the importance of the film rating system, and we work closely with the MPAA and the National Organization of Theater Owners to strengthen that system by increasing awareness and providing consumers with information about movies. We are parents, and we assume that, like us, parents will be guided by the ratings system and will make sure that young children are not shown films that are not appropriate for them, and which the director did not intend for children to see.

Amending the copyright laws to permit the use of digital content filters simply is not the way to deal with this issue. Such legislation opens the door to many unintended manipulations of movies or other copyrighted material that we all would agree are improper. Indeed, this legislation would not, and could not, discriminate between editing for benign, "family friendly," purposes, on the one hand, and other more nefarious purposes, on the other hand. For example, we presume that this Subcommittee does not intend to authorize people to use filtering technology to change the political content of copyrighted works, such as editorial columns or political statements. However, this is precisely one of the unintended effects that this legislation would have.

It could also lead to the development of an industry to market without authorization abridged versions of movies, books, articles, and other copyrighted material.

Nevertheless, and in spite of our overwhelming concern about the protection of our work, the DGA has gone to extraordinary lengths to try to resolve this matter. The DGA wants to assure this Subcommittee that it takes your concerns very seriously. Our leadership and lawyers have been working with lawyers for the studios and some of the parties that make these products. I understand that there has been considerable progress towards a resolution.

Because the DGA's collective bargaining agreement with the studios protects the artistic rights of directors, and gives directors a key role in the creation of alternate versions of motion pictures for television and airline use, the DGA has worked to permit the studios to reach agreements with these companies. Our goal is to allow the studios to make airline and television versions available, to satisfy any demand for family friendly versions of movies.

Thank you.