Howard Berman: “today, Representative Howard Coble and I have introduced H.R. 5107, the Work Made for Hire and Copyright Corrections Act…”

“today, Representative Howard Coble and I have introduced H.R. 5107, the Work Made for Hire and Copyright Corrections Act of 2000. Because of the very important nature of this bill, I believe it merits an extensive explanation. Section 2(a)(1) of this bill would remove the words ``as a sound recording'' from paragraph (2) of the definition of ``works made for hire'' in Section 101 of the Copyright Act--words that this Congress added less than a year ago through Section 1000(a)(9) of Public Law Number 106-113. When Congress enacted Section 1000(a)(9) last year, we believed it was a non-controversial, technical change that merely clarified current law. However, since that time, we have been contacted by many organizations, legal scholars, and recording artists who take strong issue with Section 1000(a)(9), asserting that it constitutes a significant, substantive change in law. We have discovered that there exists a serious debate about whether sound recordings always, usually, sometimes, or never fall within the nine, pre-existing categories of works eligible to be considered ``works made for hire,'' and thus there exists a serious debate about the substantive or technical nature of Section 1000(a)(9).”