Bill Delahunt: “I join my colleagues on the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property in support of the conference agreement.…”

“I join my colleagues on the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property in support of the conference agreement. This bill and the treaties it would implement are of vital importance to America's copyright industries, and I congratulate the conferees on reaching a hard-won agreement in time to send it to the President this year. The purpose of the treaties is to help curb international piracy of copyrighted works--which costs our country billions of dollars every year--by raising the standards for international copyright protection. Few states are as seriously affected by software piracy as Massachusetts, which is home to some of the world's leading publishing, information technology and software companies. Last year, some 2,200 Massachusetts-based software companies had 130,000 employees and combined revenues of $7.8 billion. Piracy has always been a problem for these companies, but with the advent of the digital age, it has reached epidemic proportions. The ability to make perfect digital copies at the click of a mouse--of CDs, movies, and computer programs, has been a tremendous benefit to consumers. But is has also created an enormous black market for pirated copies of these works that are indistinguishable from the originals.”