November 13, 2003
On behalf of the Directors Guild of America, I thank Senators Cornyn and Feinstein for their leadership in introducing the "Artists Rights and Theft Prevention Act" today.
The widespread pirating of US made movies, television programs and other creative works is a problem of great importance to this Guild. It is our members who create these works and the "stealing" of them have very real economic and creative consequences to the creators. The victim of piracy is society, since when their works are pirated, creators will no longer create.
The Directors Guild of America 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 directors' economic and creative rights – working for their artistic freedom and fair compensation for their work.
Film and television are indigenous American art forms that filmmakers have raised to their highest level of creativity and popularity. Our goal is to ensure that this craft continues unabated for the benefit of millions of film and television viewer's worldwide, and that our members continue to earn their living giving their talents to a craft they love.
Intellectual property theft – and the criminal activity that accompanies it – not only adversely affects the value of the copyrighted work to the producer/copyright holder, it also diminishes the economic value flow to the creators. Directors' livelihoods are dependent on the premise that their work will be protected from copyright infringement. In short, our members' compensation and pension benefits depends both on the full compensation for their works when they are released and on residual payments for those works when they are reused on free and pay television, DVD and videocassette, both domestic and international. These payments represent the 'bread and butter' income, a reality made even more necessary because the motion picture and television industry operates on the concept of freelance employment. The piracy of our members' copyrighted works takes this income directly out of our members' pockets.
In the end if our members' works are not protected and pirated copies are openly available in the United States and abroad, without just payment to our members, it is very likely that neither the creator nor the copyright holder will find it easy to continue to make those works. Clearly, the need to stop piracy through both criminal and civil penalties imposed on those who engage in such theft, such as is proposed in the "Artists Rights and Theft Prevention Act" is critical to real copyright protection and in the interests not only of our industry, but of the public who enjoy the works we create.
We applaud the introduction of your legislation and your effort to protect our member's works.