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Washington, DC — July 22, 2004
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Orrin Hatch
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Patrick Leahy
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The Directors Guild of America (DGA) submits this statement in support of the "
Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004." We commend Senators
Orrin Hatch and
Patrick Leahy for the introduction of this groundbreaking legislation. This Guild places great importance on the prevention of wide spread pirating of U.S. made movies, television programs and other creative works. It is our members who create these works and those who illegally and with full knowledge induce others to "steal" them are knowingly destroying the fundamental protections—both economic and creative—that copyright law exists to preserve.
The Directors Guild represents over 12,600 directors and members of the directorial team who work in feature film, television, commercials, documentaries, and news. The DGA protects and advances these directors' economic and creative rights—working for their artistic freedom and fair compensation for our work.
Film and television are indigenous American art forms, which filmmaker have raised to their level of creativity and popularity. Motion Pictures have documented, reflected upon, and portrayed the American experience for almost 100 years. Our goal is to ensure that this craft continues unabated for the benefit of millions of film and televisions viewers' worldwide, and that our members continue to earn their living giving their talents to a craft they love.
We are now in the digital age that has begun to fundamentally change the relationship between creators and the public. American consumers—consumers around the world—have gained instant access to all kinds of content, including the motion pictures our directors make. The question of how this access is used, and abused, has major implications for not only for copyright holders and consumers, but also for filmmakers and other creative artists in our industry.
This is why we applaud the introduction of S 2560. For the first time it addresses the real problem of Internet piracy by putting the criminal intent where it rightly lies, not on the consumer, the very people for whom our members' create films and television productions—but on the companies that create illegal P2P networks and then knowingly entice the public (most often teenagers) to infringe the copyright. We recognize that P2P technology has many benefits, but it also permits companies to go into business with the full intent of enabling widespread and unauthorized uploading and downloading of movies, television programming, music and software files. And it is those companies who have opened the floodgates to blatant piracy of copyrighted works.
When you hear the arguments that those who want unfettered access brought forth, it appears that most of them believe—or want others to believe—that once a film or a television program is completed, its value to those who create it is gone. Nothing could be further from the truth. Directors–and other creative talent—are very real stakeholders in the outcome of efforts to stem illegal P2P file sharing networks. There are very real economic and creative consequences to the creator if unauthorized P2P networks are allowed to effectively "steal" our members' work.
Illegal—and thus often criminal—infringement of copyrights' protections not only adversely affects the value of the copyrighted work to the producers/copyright holder; it also diminishes the economic value flow to the creators. That is why directors' livelihoods are dependent on the premise that their work will be protected from copyright infringement that is made possible by a number of P2P networks. Our members depend not only on the full compensation for their works when they are released but also on the residual payments for those works when they are "reused" on free and pay television, DVDs and videocassette, both domestic and international.
Our industry's residual system—which in the DGA's case has existed for 40 years—is designed to provide appropriate compensation to our members whose contributions to a motion picture or television program are so fundamental that without them it cannot be produced. In 2003, DGA collected and distributed in excess of $200 million in residual payments. These dollars represent bread and butter income to our members—a reality made even more necessary because our industry operates on the concept of freelance employment, meaning that our members are hired by a variety of employers on a production-by-production basis. Our members cannot count on a regular paycheck. What they can count on is ongoing income in the form of residual payments—that support their families and go into their pension and health plans.
In other words, businesses that encourage others to engage in P2P piracy—by allowing our copyrighted works to be downloaded without our authorization or compensation—takes income directly out of directors pockets and their retirement plans. In addition, directors work—when distributed in an unprotected digital format—again through illegal infringement made possible by P2P networks, is easily altered and exploited, so that it no longer resembles what they have created even though their name may remain on it.
We submit this statement today to because the DGA wants to make clear that we cannot afford to have our members' livelihoods weakened by institutions or companies, who enable others to download and share our copyrighted work. All the while this companies pretend it is their "right" to do so without regard to the economic consequence of their actions on the original creators. Ironically, they admire our members' work so much that they feel justified in telling others to take it illegally.
P2P networks, if properly regulated, legally created and legitimately operated, can represent a market that may greatly benefit our members. However, if our members' works are not protected and pirated copies are openly available through these networks around the world without payment to our members, it is very likely that in the end neither the creator nor the copyright holder will find it easy to continue to make those works.
Enacting public policy that enables the creative artist and the copyright holder to sue the very companies that profit from encouraging copyright infringement, as proposed in the "Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004," will go a long way to providing meaningful copyright protection. It is not only in the interests of our industry that the DGA supports this legislation, but also of the very public whose love of this most American of art forms began so many decades ago.
