Howard Coble

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1752 contains several provisions that are needed to improve the Federal court system. It is designed to improve administration and procedures, eliminate operational inefficiencies, and reduce operating expenses. The provisions contained in H.R. 1752 address administrative, financial, personnel, organizational, and technical changes that are needed by the Article III Federal courts and their supporting agencies. These provisions are designed to have a positive effect on the operations of the Federal courts and enhance the delivery of justice in the Federal system. The manager's amendment makes no substantive changes. However, on the advice of legislative counsel, certain technical and conforming changes have been made to H.R. 1752. Furthermore, after consultation with the Committee on the Budget, it became clear that the provision regarding the civil asset forfeiture would require unanticipated expenditures. Therefore, it was taken out of H.R. 1752 and will be reconsidered in the future. H.R. 1752, Mr. Speaker, is necessary legislation for the proper functioning of our United States courts. It is nonpartisan and noncontroversial, and I urge the House to pass H.R. 1752. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, with the 2000 NCAA basketball season having drawn to a close and the NBA season in playoff fever, I would like to recognize three schools from the Sixth District of North Carolina that captured state basketball championships recently. Thomasville High School, Ledford Senior High School, and Westchester Academy, have all been crowned 2000 North Carolina high school basketball champions. Thomasville High School captured the boys 1-A state title. Champions for the second time in three years, the Bulldogs had an impressive season. We congratulate Wingate Smith, Brandon Jefferies, Leandor Poole, Justin Fordham, Derrick Peake, Michael Christian, Roy Peake, Jeremy Tillman, Brandon Setzer, Anthony Harris, and Josh Cockman. Other people who contributed to Thomasville's state title were Head Coach Woody Huneycutt, Assistant Coach Lacardo Means, manager Josh Winnex, as well as Tracy Quick, Shalonda Long, and Matthew Mathis. Ledford Senior High School claimed the girl's 2-A state championship, their third title in six years. For the first time in school history, the Panthers won 30 games in a single season, ending with a spectacular 30-2 record. We congratulate Leslie Hinkle, Kara Mendenhall, Pam Oast, Kristen Ferrell, Kristal Robbins, Katie Ralls, Jennifer McCarthy, Britt Krull, Casie Thomas, Nancy Hinson, Lindsay Smith, and Alicia Stokes. The Panthers achieved their success with the help of Head Coach John Ralls, and Assistant Coaches Alan Patterson, Joe Davis, and David Sands. They were ably assisted by managers Jennifer Shuskey, Michael Scheuerman, Tim Bass, and Hunter Morris. Westchester Academy won the boy's state independent school championship for the first time since 1976, dethroning five-time state champions Victory Christian. The Wildcats completed their season with an amazing 28-2 record. We congratulate Martin Rosenthal, Scott Craven, Brooks Weller, Jim Swaringen, Doug Esleeck, Kellie Jones, Tyler Hustrulid, Joel Foster, Matt McInnis, T.C. Crouch, Chad Habeeb, Lorenz Manthey, Johnston Spillers, Dwon Clifton, and Peter Tsampas. Head Coach Pat Kahny, Assistant Coach Jason Hailey guided the Wildcats to their state title, along with managers Jeff Finch, Rebecca Cochran, Trey Jones, and scorekeeper Lindsay Sams. The Sixth District of North Carolina is proud of these three teams from Davidson County for their hard work and dedication. Congratulations to the boys from Thomasville High School and Westchester Academy, and the girls from Ledford Senior High School. Congratulations to all three teams for a job well done.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, May 10, and Thursday, May 11, I missed rollcall votes 160-179. On these dates, I was representing the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property at the opening of the Diplomatic Conference on the Patent Law Treaty in Geneva, Switzerland. As Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, I believe congressional representation at this meeting was important, and I was honored to address the delegates of the conference.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, as many know, this was an important part of the legislation from last session concerning the Satellite Home Viewers Act. I believe the citizens in rural areas, particularly those in the Sixth District of North Carolina, deserve the same opportunities others have to be served by local broadcasters. It is important to proliferate local stations serving local areas so all can receive their local news, local community service and particularly emergency weather updates for that area. To demonstrate how important this is, you only have to ask my fellow citizens from eastern North Carolina who were victimized by those tragic floods just last year. It is my hope that this legislation serves as a catalyst, Mr. Speaker, for accomplishing that goal. It is my further hope that the Senate will take the bill and enact it. If it does not, any conference may be tempted to expand the reach of the current legislation. I am glad the Committee on the Judiciary was able to assist in moving this bill quickly, and I reiterate the interest of the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde) in our participation in any such conference, but hope we can move it quickly into law. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) were the lead dogs, if you will, on this legislation. They were tireless in their efforts, and I commend them for that.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 37 I inadvertently pressed the ``no'' button. I meant to vote ``yes.''

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this proposal and commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) for their efforts in this endeavor.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, with the recent Super Bowl, another exciting football season has come to an end. Before we put this season to bed, however, I wish to take a moment to recognize a high school in the Sixth District of North Carolina that just concluded a perfect football season. The High Point Central High School Bison completed a 15-0 season by capturing the 1999 North Carolina 2-A Football Championship. High Point Central defeated Southwest Onslow by a score of 30-7 in Chapel Hill, NC, on December 11, 1999, to win the State 2-A high school title. In fact, going into the championship game, both teams were undefeated. The Bison used a swarming defense and an opportunistic offense to overwhelm the previously-unbeaten Stallions. The Bison completed one of the most dominating seasons in recent high school football history. The team had not one but two running backs who rushed for more than 2,000 yards each. The Bison scored 641 points in capturing both conference and regional titles. Head Coach and Athletic Director Gary Whitman, who had won two State titles while at Lexington High School, led High Point Central to its first State championship since 1979. ``The State championship is obviously a great exclamation point for the season,'' Coach Whitman told the High Point Enterprise. ``Our kids deserve a lot of the credit and the coaching staff has done a great job. The pressure has been on them all year long, and they've handled it well. I'm proud of them for that, and it can't be much better than it is right now.'' Coach, you are so right. Winning the State championship is the ultimate price and it took complete cooperation from a lot of dedicated people to reach the pinnacle. First, we have to recognize the players who made it happen. They include Derrick Bryant, Darius Johnson, Nick Garrison, Steve Turner, Chuckie Reid, Rashad Stevenson, Jonathon Holloman, Stanley Butler, Wayne Traylor, Quincy Thomas, Jonathon Spencer, Quincy Smith, Wich Brenner, Calvin Humphrey, Matt Brooke, Brian Bourn, Montrey Gilchrist, Antonio Graves, Kevin Green, Brandon Hunt, Brandon Tucker, Bradley Watson, Kwan Walls, Sam Hairston, Kedrick Russell, Clint Sarvis, Twain Johnson, Rickey Haywood, Rod Zimmerman, Josh Mitchell, Travis Cobb, Atari Evans, Alan Byerly, Tyler Walls, Michael Waugh, Grant Allred, Rodney Pitts, Andre Matthews, Titus Johnson, Tron McNeil, Travis Johnson, Joe Atkins, Roy Bronson, James Leak, Daniel Bell, Matthew Waugh, Brandon Greeson, Jerome Garrett, Kyle Ingram, Cornelius Leach, Reco Graham, Tony Dixon, Devin Buchannon, Phillip Green, and Dane Brenner. Head Coach Whitman was ably assisted by an outstanding team of coaches including Bill Anderson, Steve Edwards, Jim Grkman, Chuck Henderson, Steve Johnson, Wayne Jones, Jeff Thomas, and Troy Whitman. The Bison support group including Dr. Richard Keever, the team physician, Ronnie House, the trainer, Winfrey Bivens and Jane Johnson, who handled the videotaping, along with ball boys Bret Hammer, Stephen Johnson, and Ben Thomas. So, as High Point Central continues to celebrate its first football championship in 20 years, we offer our congratulations to everyone associated with Bison football. Everyone from Principal Helen Lankford to the students, staff, and faculty at High Point Central High School can take pride in capturing the ultimate prize. I join with the family, friends, and fans of Bison football in congratulating High Point Central High School for winning the 1999 North Carolina 2-A Football Championship. The season was, in a word, perfect.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, in just a few days--February 8, to be exact-- we will acknowledge the fourth anniversary of the signing of the historic Telecommunications Act of 1996. And so, it is fitting that we acknowledge one of the act's key sponsors, my good friend, the gentleman from Richmond, Chairman Tom Bliley. As part of the act's anniversary activities, the Competitive Telecommunications Association, more easily referred to as CompTel, is honoring Chairman Bliley as one of the two ``Champions of Competition,'' the other being Senator Fritz Hollings from the State of North Carolina. Both will be duly recognized, and rightly so, for their outstanding leadership and bipartisan spirit throughout the nearly decade-long debate in the Congress to update the 1934 act. Mr. Speaker, the Telecom Act provides for a procompetitive, deregulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapid private sector deployment of advanced telecommunications and information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition. Well, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that the results are in following 4 years after enactment of this historic piece of legislation. Thanks to Chairman Bliley's persistence in crafting proper safeguards to ensure open competition to all players, we see today the fruits of his labor. Finally, Mr. Speaker, in addition to commending Mr. Bliley for his role in bringing competition to the local market, I would note that his good work on this historic bill has brought hundreds of new companies competing in today's marketplace offering better products and services than have ever been developed and deployed in our lifetime. With that said, it's important to note that not only are consumers better served with many choices, but served at lower prices. Mr. Bliley and the act intended this to happen. Mr. Speaker, I raise my hat to Chairman Tom Bliley and congratulate him on being named the Champion of Competition.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 254) expressing the sense of the House of Representatives condemning recent hate crimes in Illinois and Indiana, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, today represents the culmination of a multi- year-long process to update the copyright licensing regimes covering the retransmission of broadcast signals. When the Satellite Home Viewer Act was first passed in 1988, satellite dishes were a rare sight in communities across America, and the dishes that did exist were almost all large, ``C-band'' dishes. Today, the satellite dish has become ubiquitous, and the dishes that most people use are now much smaller-- only 18 inches across. The small dish industry alone has more than 10 million subscribers, with nearly two million other households still relying on large dishes. With this massive change in the marketplace, we are overdue for a fresh look at the laws governing retransmissions of television station programming. The existing provisions of the Satellite Home Viewer Act allow satellite carriers to retransmit copyrighted programming for a set fee to a narrowly defined category of customers. The Act thus represents an exception to the general principles of copyright--that those who create works of authorship enjoy exclusive rights in them, and are entitled to bargain in the marketplace to sell those rights. In almost all other areas of the television industry, those bedrock principles work well. Indeed, virtually all of the programming that we enjoy on both broadcast and nonbroadcast stations is produced under that free market regime. Because exclusive rights and marketplace bargaining are so fundamental to copyright law, we should depart from those principles only when necessary and only to the most limited possible degree. Statutory licenses represent a departure from these bedrock principles, and should be construed as narrowly as possible. Reflecting the need to keep such departures narrow, the existing Satellite Home Viewer Act permits network station signals to be retransmitted only to a narrowly defined group of ``unserved households,'' i.e., those located in places, almost always remote rural areas, in which over-the-air signals are simply too weak to be picked up with a correctly oriented, properly functioning conventional rooftop antenna. The definition of an ``unserved household'' continues to be the same as it is in the current statute, i.e., a household that cannot receive, through the use of a properly working, stationary outdoor rooftop antenna that is pointed toward the transmitter, a signal of at least Grade B intensity as defined in Section 73.683(a) of the FCC's rules. The courts have already interpreted this provision and nothing in the Act changes that definition. The ``Grade B intensity'' standard is and has always been an ``objective'' signal strength standard--not, as some satellite carriers claimed, a subjective picture quality standard. (In fact, as the courts have discussed, Congress expressly rejected a subjective standard in first enacting the statute in 1988.) The objective Grade B intensity standard has long been used by the FCC and the television engineering community to determine the level of signal strength needed to provide an acceptable television picture to median, unbiased observers. Few, if any, subscribers in urban and suburban areas qualify as ``unserved'' under this objective, easy-to- administer definition. The existing compulsory license for ``unserved households,'' was not, however, designed to enable local TV stations to be retransmitted to their own local viewers. Congress has never before been asked to create such a license, because technological limitations made the local-to- local business unthinkable in 1988 and even in 1994, when Congress passed the first extension of the Satellite Home Viewer Act. Today, however, local-to-local service is no longer unthinkable. In fact, two satellite companies, DirecTV and EchoStar, stand ready to offer that service, at least in a limited number of markets, immediately. To help local viewers in North Carolina and across the country, and to assist satellite companies in competing with cable, I have worked with my colleagues to help craft a new copyright statutory license that will enable local-to-local retransmissions. Today, we can finally celebrate the fruits of our efforts over many months of hard work and negotiation. The bill before the House reflects a carefully calibrated set of provisions that will, for the first time, authorize TV stations to be retransmitted by satellite to the viewers in their own local markets. The bill will also extend, essentially unchanged, the current distant signal compulsory license in Section 119 of the Copyright Act. The only significant changes to that provision are that (1) the mandatory 90 day waiting period for cable subscribers will no longer be part of the law; (2) royalty rates for distant signals will be reduced from the marketplace rates currently in effect; (3) a limited, specifically defined category of subscribers subject to recent court orders will have delayed termination dates under the bill; (4) the bill will limit the number of distant signals that a satellite carrier may deliver even to ``unserved households''; and (5) the bill will require satellite carriers to purchase rooftop antennas for certain subscribers whose service has been turned off by court order. Except for these specific changes in Section 119, nothing in the law we are passing today will take away any of the rights and remedies available to the plaintiffs in copyright infringement litigation against satellite carriers. Nor will anything in the bill (other than the specific provisions I have just mentioned) require any change whatsoever in the manner in which the courts have enforced Section 119. I trust that the courts will continue to vigorously enforce the Copyright Act against those who seek to pretend it does not apply to them, including any satellite companies that have not yet been subject to injunctive relief for infringements they have committed. Indeed, the very premise on which Congress creates statutory licenses is that the limitations on those licenses will be strictly respected; when satellite carriers go beyond those limitations, they not only infringe copyrights, but destroy the premise on which Congress agreed to create the statutory license in the first place. I want to say a word about the ``white area'' problem and about the delayed terminations of certain categories of subscribers. In particular, I want to express my extreme displeasure with the conduct by the satellite industry over the past few years. It is apparent, and at least two courts have found in final judgments (one affirmed on appeal), that satellite companies have purposely and deliberately violated the Copyright Act in selling these distant network signal packages to customers who are obviously unqualified. Those decisions have correctly and properly applied the Copyright Act. Whether or not satellite companies like the law, they have no right to merely disregard it. The ``turnoff'' crisis was caused by the satellite industry, not the Congress, and I do not appreciate having an industry take innocent consumers as hostages, which is what has happened here. Now we as members of Congress, have been asked to fix this problem created by satellite industry lawbreaking. The bill reflects the conferees' best effort to find a solution to a problem that the satellite industry has created by signing up millions of ineligible customers. Unfortunately, the solution the conferees have devised-- temporary grandfathering of certain categories of ineligible subscribers--may seem to amount to rewarding the satellite industry for its own wrongdoing. I find this very troubling, even though I understand the impetus to protect consumers who have been misled by satellite companies into believing that essentially everyone is eligible for distant network signals. In any event, let me be very clear: with the exception of delayed termination dates for certain subscribers, nothing in this bill in any way relieves any satellite company from any remedy whatsoever for any lawbreaking, past or future, in which they may engage. To list just a few, nothing in the bill will relieve any satellite carrier from any court order (a) requiring immediate termination of ineligible small-dish subscribers predicted to receive Grade A intensity signals from any station of the relevant network, (b) requiring strict compliance with the Grade B intensity standard for all signups after the date of the court order, (c) requiring the payment of attorney's fees pursuant to Section 5.5 of the Copyright Act or payment for testing costs pursuant to Section 119(a)(9), or (d) imposing any statutorily mandated remedy for any willful or repeated pattern or practice of violations committed by a particular satellite carrier. Congress has determined the outer limits of permissible grandfathering in this bill, and courts need not entertain an arguments for additional grandfathering. And I should emphasize that the only subscribers that may have service restored pursuant to the grandfathering provisions of this Act are those that have had their service terminated as a result of court orders, and not for any other reason. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property of the House Judiciary Committee, I also want to make clear that Congress is not in any way finding fault with the manner in which the federal courts have enforced the Satellite Home Viewer Act. To the contrary, the courts (including the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, the Fourth Circuit, and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida) have done an admirable job in correctly carrying out the intent of Congress which established a strictly objective eligibility standard that applied to only a tiny fraction of American television households. Although the conferees have reluctantly decided to deal with the unlawful signups by postponing cutoffs of certain specified categories of consumers, that prospective legislative decision--to which Congress is resorting because of the no-win situation created by past satellite industry lawbreaking--does not reflect any criticism whatsoever of the federal courts. And I should emphasize that we have re-enacted, intact, the procedural and remedial provisions of Section 119, including, for example, the ``burden of proof'' and ``pattern or practice'' provisions that have been important in litigation under the Act. The bill will require satellite carriers that have turned off ineligible subscribers pursuant to court decisions under section 119 to provide those subscribers with a free rooftop antenna enabling them to receive local stations over the air. This provision may redress, to some degree, the unfairness of appearing to reward satellite carriers for their own lawbreaking. The free-antenna provision is a pure matter of fairness to consumers, who were told, falsely, that they could receive distant network signals based on saying ``I don't like my TV picture'' over the telephone. I trust that many North Carolinians will benefit from the satellite carriers' compliance with this important remedial provision. I should briefly discuss the addition of the word ``stationary'' to the phrase ``conventional outdoor rooftop receiving antenna'' in Section 119(d)(10) of the Copyright Act. As the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over copyright matters, and as the original sponsor of this legislation, I want to stress that this one- word change to the Copyright Act does not require (or even permit) any change in the methods used by the courts to enforce the ``unserved household'' limitation of Section 119. The new language says only that the test is whether a ``stationary'' antenna can pick up a Grade B intensity signal; although some may have wished otherwise, it does not say that the antenna is to be improperly oriented (i.e., pointed away from the TV transmitter in question). To read the Act in that way would be extraordinarily hypocritical, since ``stationary'' satellite antennas themselves must be perfectly oriented to get any reception at all. In any event, the Act provides controlling guidance about antenna orientation in Section 119(a)(2)(B)(ii)(II) of the bill, which specifies that the FCC's existing procedures (requiring correct orientation) be followed. See 47 C.F.R. Sec. 73.686(d), Appendix B, at para. (2)(iv); see also FCC Report & Order, Dkt. No. 98-201, at para. 59 (describing many precedents calling for correct orientation). A contrary reading would leave the Copyright Act with no fixed meaning at all, since while there is a single correct way to orient an antenna to receive a particular station (which is what the Act assumes), there are at least 359 wrong ways to do so as one moves in a circle away from the correct orientation. A contrary reading would also fly in the face of the text of the Act, which makes eligibility depend on whether a household ``cannot'' receive the signal of particular stations. The Act is clear: if a household could receive a signal of Grade B intensity with a properly oriented stationary rooftop antenna of a particular network affiliate station, the household is not ``unserved'' with respect to that network. The Copyright Act amendments also direct courts to continue to use the accurate consumer-friendly prediction and measurement tools developed by the FCC for determining whether particular households are served or unserved. I understand that the parties to court proceedings under Section 119 have already developed detailed protocols for applying those procedures, and nothing in today's legislation requires any change in those protocols. If the Commission is able to refine its already very accurate ``ILLR'' predictive model to make it even more accurate, the courts should apply those further refinements as well. But in the meantime, the courts should use the accurate, FCC-approved tools that are already available, in the same way in which they are doing now. As I mentioned, nothing in the Act requires any change whatsoever in the manner in which the courts are using those FCC- endorsed scientific tools. The Act does authorize the Commission to make nonbinding suggestions about changes to the definition of Grade B intensity. (The definition of Grade B intensity is, of course, separate from FCC decisions concerning particular methods of measuring or predicting eligibility to receive network programming by satellite, as the FCC's February 1999 SHVA Report and order discusses in detail.) Any suggestions from the FCC about the definition of Grade B intensity will have no legal effect whatsoever until and unless Congress acts on them and incorporates them into the Copyright Act. The conferees and many other members of this body have worked hard to achieve the carefully balanced bill now before the House. We have spent the better part of four years working with representatives of the broadcast, copyright, satellite, and cable industries fashioning legislation that is ultimately best for our constituents. The legislation before us today is not perfect, but it is a carefully balanced compromise. The real winners are our constituents, who can expect to enjoy local-to-local satellite delivery of their own hometown TV stations in more and more markets over the next few years. I want to thank the chairman of the committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), as well as the subcommittee ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman) for their support and leadership throughout this process. I also want to recognize the contributions of the leadership of the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Bliley); the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell); the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin); the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley); and the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), who worked with us tirelessly to bring this to the Floor. Finally, I want to thank my fellow Subcommittee members, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte and Mr. Boucher) for their service on the committee of conference. I urge all Members to support this constituent-friendly legislation.

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of S. 1948, which will be enacted by reference upon the enactment of H.R. 3194. S. 1948, the ``Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999,'' concludes years of hard work and compromise. We spent considerable time balancing the interests of our constituents, intellectual property owners, satellite carriers, local broadcasters, and independent inventors in formulating this legislation. We have spent the past five years working on this legislation, and I can say without hesitation that this is a very good bill. This legislation will have a tremendously beneficial affect on the citizens of this country, whether they are subscribers to satellite television, inventors, brand owners, or Internet users. Title I of S. 1948, the ``Satellite Home Viewer Improvements Act,'' creates a new copyright license for local signals over satellite and makes necessary changes to the other television copyright licenses. We have all been concerned about a lack of competition in the multi- channel television industry and what that means in terms of prices and services to our constituents. This bill gives the satellite industry a new copyright license with the ability to compete on a more even playing field, thereby giving consumers a choice. With this competition in mind, the legislation before us makes the following changes to the Satellite Home Viewers Act. 1. It reauthorizes the satellite copyright compulsory license for five years. 2. It allows new satellite customers who have received a network signal from a cable system within the past three months to sign up immediately for satellite service for those signals. This is not allowed today. 3. It provides a discount for the copyright fees paid by the satellite carriers. 4. It allows satellite carriers to retransmit a local television station to households within that station's local market, just like cable does. 5. Protects existing subscribers from having their distant network service shut off at the end of the year and protects all C-band customers from having their network service shut off entirely. 6. It allows satellite carriers to rebroadcast a national signal of the Public Broadcasting Service. 7. It empowers the FCC to conduct a rulemaking to determine appropriate standards for satellite carriers concerning which customers should be allowed to receive distant network signals. The satellite legislation before us today is a balanced approach. It is not perfect, like most pieces of legislation, but is a carefully balanced compromise. For instance, I am extremely disappointed the rural loan guarantee program was deleted from this legislation. We included those provisions in our original Conference Report to accompany H.R. 1554 to ensure all citizens, particularly those who live in small or rural communities, will receive the benefit of the new local-to-local service. I pledge I will do everything I can to ensure those provisions are acted upon early in the next session of Congress. Additionally, language clarifying the application and eligibility of these compulsory licenses has also been deleted from this version of the legislation. This is not to be interpreted to indicate any change in the application of the cable or satellite compulsory licenses as they applied before the enactment of this legislation. The copyright compulsory licenses were created by Congress to address specific needs of a specific industry. Any further application of a compulsory license will be decided by Congress, not by an industry or a court. I am incorporating in this statement letters from the Register of Copyrights, Marybeth Peters, and from the Chairman and Ranking Members of the Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property and from Professor Arthur R. Miller of the Harvard Law School which accurately restate the eligibility and interpretation of the copyright compulsory licenses. I am also enclosing extended remarks which express my views concerning the legislative history for the ``Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999.'' On balance, this is a very good piece of legislation and I urge all Members to support this constituent-friendly legislation. Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC, November 15, 1999. Hon. Tom Bliley, Chairman, Committee on Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Bliley. Thank you for your letter concerning sections 1005(e) and 1011(c) of the conference report on the Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act (``IPCORA''). We do not believe there is any question about the current state of the law: Internet and similar digital online communications services are not, and have never been, eligible to claim the cable copyright compulsory license or satellite copyright compulsory license created by sections 111 and 119 of the Copyright Act, respectively. The cable copyright license was created in 1976 specifically to apply to the nature of the cable industry. The satellite license was created in 1988 specifically to apply to the nature of the satellite industry. It should be noted that the satellite industry could not avail itself of the cable license, because that license was created specifically for cable. It had to seek its own government license. The Internet services industry is not cable, nor is it satellite. It provides a new type of service which has not been considered by the Congress for purposes of a copyright compulsory license. Consequently, the Internet services industry may not avail itself of the cable copyright license or the satellite copyright license. If such a government imposed license is to apply to such services, it must be created by Congress specifically for those services. To my knowledge, no court, administrative agency, or authoritative commentator has ever held or even intimated to the contrary. The Copyright Office, which administers these compulsory licenses, studied this issue exhaustively in 1997 and came to the same conclusion, which it reaffirmed in a letter this week. The conference provisions to which you object simply codify this well-established principle, nothing more. Compulsory licenses constitute government regulation of private ownership, and therefore, like any other restriction on property, must be extended only with specific congressional action after considered deliberation. They are not flexible, nor are they to be interpreted to evolve to accommodate new situations. Government regulation of property is not to be decided by a court, but rather by Congress itself. Placing restrictions on property or preserving an ``opportunity'' for someone to make a case to an agency or court to take property without authorization is not proper under the law, or is it proper in the context of this conference. A compulsory license is not an entitlement, but a specific public policy determination by Congress in response to a specific demonstrated need. Whether online services should have the benefit of a compulsory license to retransmit certain copyrighted materials without the permission of the copyright owner must be considered on its own merits after a need is demonstrated to the Congress. If Congress is to examine such a request, it must do so on the basis of a complete record, not in the haste of the closing hours of a session. Of course, nothing that is included in or omitted from the IPCORA conference report (or any other pending legislation) could possibly foreclose Congress from undertaking that examination in the future. Thus, any implication that approval of the conference report would ``permanently'' rule out any compulsory license for online services is unfounded. We are sure you did not intend to suggest otherwise. Any resolution that we may adopt in the future does not change the current law which requires that issues concerning the dissemination of copyright materials over digital online communications services must be addressed and resolved in the marketplace, as no compulsory license currently exists for such services. Nothing prevents Internet services from negotiating directly with owners of copyrights regarding any of the exclusive rights guaranteed under section 106 of the Copyright Act pursuant to Article I, section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution. We are currently prepared to consider other means of expressing the same conclusion in statutory language, but one way or the other it is essential that we spell out unambiguously what the law now is. To do otherwise would sow confusion and risk encouraging defiance of the law, and would undermine the well-settled property rights of a key sector of the U.S. economy, the copyright industries. Most significantly, it would also be a disservice to our common goal of encouraging the widespread dissemination of copyrighted material through all available technologies. We stand ready to work with you to avoid that outcome. Sincerely, Henry J. Hyde, Chairman. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Democratic Member. Howard Coble, Chairman, Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property. Howard Berman, Ranking Democratic Member, Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will continue to yield, I think she commented about staff. I want to add the name of Jim Wilon. Jim did great work on this matter, as well.

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren) for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the Federal Reports Elimination and Sunset Act of 1995 provided that all periodic reports provided to Congress will sunset on December 21, 1999, unless reauthorized by the Congress. The intent of the Act was to spur Congress to reexamine all the periodic reports it receives and eliminate the obsolete ones. After careful review, the Committee on the Judiciary determined that about 40 reports out of the thousands of reports subject to sunset are required for the committee to perform its legislative and oversight duties. Examples include the United States Department of Justice's annual report on crime statistics and the Immigration and Naturalization Service's annual statistical report. The bill passed the House on the suspension calendar. The companion Senate bill adds two more reports which the Senate has asked to be continued. The motion which I will make will continue all the reports contained in the House bill and the two additional reports contained in the Senate bill into one bill and send it back to the Senate for passage and presentment to the President.

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the Senate bill (S. 1769) to continue the reporting requirements of section 2519 of title 18, United States Code, beyond December 21, 1999, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3456 is very similar to H.R. 1761, which was considered under suspension of the rules and agreed to by voice vote on August 2, 1999. It makes significant improvements in the ability of the Copyright Act to deter copyright infringement by amending it to increase the statutory penalties for infringement. Copyright piracy, Mr. Speaker, is flourishing in the world. With the advanced technologies available and the fact that many computer users are either ignorant of the copyright laws or simply believe that they will not be caught or punished, the piracy trend will continue. One way to combat this problem is to increase the statutory penalties for copyright infringement so that they will be an effective deterrent to this conduct. Another significant aspect of H.R. 3456 addresses a problem on regarding the difficulty of prosecuting crimes against intellectual property. It instructs that within 120 days on enactment of this act or within 120 days after there is a sufficient number of voting members to constitute a quorum, the United States Sentencing Commission shall promulgate emergency guideline amendments to implement the sentencing mandate in the No Electronic Theft, popularly known as the NET Act, which became law in the 105th Congress. It is vital that the United States recognizes intellectual property rights and provides strong protection and enforcement against violation of those rights. This legislation, Mr. Speaker, makes significant and necessary improvements to the Copyright Act. The Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property and the Committee on the Judiciary support H.R. 3456 in a bipartisan manner, and I urge its adoption today. If I may, Mr. Speaker, at this time I have one more bill and possibly two more bills that are very brief, but I would be remiss as we conclude the first session of the 106th Congress if I did not convey my personal expressions of thanks to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), the ranking member of the subcommittee; to each Democrat and Republican member of the subcommittee; to our very fine chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde); and to the staff on both the Democrat and Republican side for the accomplishments. And pardon our immodesty, but I think we have realized accomplishments during this first session.

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. While I was praising all my colleagues on the Judiciary and on the subcommittee and, of course, intellectual property, inevitably omissions are committed and I inadvertently failed to mention the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the ranking member of the full committee.

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 3456) to amend statutory damages provisions of title 17, U.S. Code, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to reintroduce the Small Business Franchise Act of 1999. In the closing days of the 105th Congress, Congressman Conyers and I introduced similar legislation aimed at leveling the playing field in the business relationship between corporations that sell franchises and the small businessmen and women who invest in them. Franchise businesses represent a large and growing segment of our nation's retail and service businesses and are rapidly replacing more traditional forms of small business ownership in our economy. As a result, franchise owners have become the heart and soul of America's economic engine and the backbone of local commerce. The franchisor/franchisee relationship is fundamentally an economic one where the objective of each party is to make money. Capitalism at its best one would think. Unfortunately, that is where the mutuality ends. In the context of a means to an end, the interests of the franchisee and franchisor are not always the same. For instance, because the parent corporations collect royalties on sales, not profits, it is in the economic interest of the corporate franchisor to open more outlets, even if it is at the expense of an existing franchisee. It is exactly this type of activity that has brought us here today. As a conservative Republican who supports smaller government and less regulation, many people have asked why I support franchise legislation. First of all, this legislation is not about bigger government and more regulation--it is about protecting freedom. The freedom for small business entrepreneurs to contract fairly, honestly, and without fear of retribution. Second, the Constitution provides Congress with the authority to regulate interstate commerce which Congress has already done for some franchisees by enacting the Petroleum Marketers Act and the Automobile Dealers Day in Court Act. I believe the time has come to apply these same standards to all franchise business relationships. One of the key provisions of this legislation applies the Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing to the franchise relationship. One would think that this obligation is inherent in all contractual relationships, however, because there has been inconsistency in judicial interpretation, clarification is needed. The Duty of Good Faith provision requires both the franchisor and the franchisee to act in good faith in its performance and enforcement of the contract. A Duty of Good Faith obligates each party to do nothing that would have the effect of destroying or injuring the right of the other party to obtain and receive the expected fruits of the contract. If the franchisees are willing to apply this provision to themselves, why are the farnchisors unwilling to do the same? There is also great concern among franchisees about monopolistic behavior among franchisors with respect to sourcing requirements. Many franchise contracts require franchisees to purchase equipment, fixture, supplies, goods and services directly from the franchisor or its subsidiary, thus eliminating competition from the system and driving up costs for the franchisees and ultimately the consumer. Under this legislation, competition would be injected into the procurement process, ultimately lowering costs for everyone. Along these same lines, franchisors would also be required to disclose any rebates, commissions, payments or other benefits resulting from the mandated sourcing requirement imposed on the franchisees. These kinds of ``kickback'' have been illegal in other industries for years, and the time has come to shine the light of day on these long-standing franchisor abuses. During the past 20 years, there has been tremendous change in the franchising industry, and as a result, I believe the time has come for Congress to examine this issue and level the playing field for small business franchisees across our great nation. The legislation that I introduce today, along with my distinguished colleague from Michigan, Congressman John Conyers, addresses the fundamental and necessary safeguards that this industry so desperately needs. This legislation, like the Automobile Dealers Day in Court Act and the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act, rights the imbalance that has existed for too long in the franchisor/franchisee relationship.

Mr. COBLE

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. This is the second omnibus copyright bill in as many Congresses, Mr. Speaker, revealing our commitment to address the challenges of the digital age as it involves the most important element, content. Without music, movies, software and books, all the machines in the world, Mr. Speaker, are meaningless. I am proud with my colleagues here today to stand up to protect property on the Internet, to help owners and consumers. This bill does that. This bill balances the interests involved. I urge support.

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns). (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden). (Mr. WALDEN of Oregon asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Rogan), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.