John Cornyn: “As the chairman knows, he and I and our other co-sponsors have worked throughout this Congress on the provisions of the…”

“As the chairman knows, he and I and our other co-sponsors have worked throughout this Congress on the provisions of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2004 that we have introduced today. I just want to confirm what I believe to be our mutual understanding about the effect of certain provisions of the Family Movie Act. Title II of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2004 that we introduced today modifies slightly the Family Movie Act provisions of H.R. 4077 as passed by the House of Representatives. That bill created a new exemption in section 110(11) of the Copyright Act for skipping and muting audio and video content in motion pictures during performances that take place in the course of a private viewing in a household from an authorized copy of the motion picture. The House-passed version specifically excluded from the scope of the new copyright exemption computer programs or technologies that make changes, deletions, or additions to commercial advertisements or to network or station promotional announcements that would otherwise be displayed before, during, or after the performance of the motion picture. My understanding is that this provision reflected a 'belt and suspenders' approach that was adopted to quiet the concerns of some Members in the House who were concerned that a court might misread the statute to apply to 'ad-skipping' cases.”