Page:H. Rept. No. 94-1733 (1976).djvu/80



House bill

Section 504(c) (2) of the House bill required the court to remit statutory damages entirely in cases where a teacher, librarian, archivist, or public broadcaster, or the institution to which they belong, infringed in the honest belief that what they were doing constituted fair use. The general and special penalties provided by section 506 (a) were changed, with the maximum terms of imprisonment being decreased. Section 509 of the Senate bill was deleted, and section 506 (b) was expanded to incorporate some, but not all, of the provisions on seizure and forfeiture previously in section 509. Conforming changes were made in the amendments to the Criminal Code provided by Sec. 111.

Conference substitute

The conference substitute adopts the House amendments with respect to statutory damages in section 504(c) (2) and the fines and terms of imprisonment provided by section 506(a) and Sec. 111. With respect to the provisions on seizure and forfeiture, the conference substitute adopts the Senate bill with certain modifications.

Senate bill

The Senate bill retained the manufacturing clause of the present law, but substantially narrowed its scope and ameliorated its effect. Nondramatic literary material by American authors would, as a general rule, be required to be manufactured in the United States or Canada to be entitled to full and unqualified copyright protection in the United States, but the requirement would be subject to a number of exceptions and limitations, and the sanctions for enforcement involved import restrictions and loss of remedies rather than loss of copyright.

House bill

The House bill adopted section 601 of the Senate bill, with an amendment further ameliorating its effect on individual American authors whose works are first published abroad. However, the requirement would be retained only through the end of 1980, and would cease to apply on January 1, 1981.

Conference substitute

The conference substitute adopts the House amendments of section 601, but moves the effective date of the phase-out of the manufacturing clause back to July 1, 1982.

Canada is specifically exempted from the provisions of Section 601, the so-called ‘manufacturing clause’ of the Bill, at least until 1982. This exemption is included as a result of an agreement reached in Toronto in 1968 among representatives of American and Canadian publishers, printing trade unions, and book manufacturers. Upon addition of the Canadian exemption in American legislation, that agreement contemplates Canadian adoption of the Florence Agreement and prompt joint action to remove high Canadian tariffs on printed matter and the removal of other Canadian restraints on printing and publishing trade between the two countries, as well as reciprocal prompt action by U.S. groups to remove any remaining U.S.