When Abraham Lincoln first ran for Congress, he began his first campaign speech by saying: “My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance.” Taking my cue from Abe Lincoln, I say: “My message is short and sweet – and urgent.”

The Copyright Industries (movies, TV, home video, music, publishing and computer software) are America’s greatest trade prize. We are creating jobs at three times the rate of the rest of the economy. We bring in more international revenues than aircraft, more than agriculture, more than automobiles and auto parts. What is more astonishing and more valuable is that we have a Surplus Balance of Trade with every single country in the world, while in 2000 this nation suffered an unholy rise to almost $400 Billion in Deficits. No other American business enterprise can make that statement, which is why we represent an economic engine of growth that is the envy of the known world.

Even more extraordinary is the global reach of the Copyright Industries. American creative material is joyously received by every country, creed and culture on this planet. The American movie, as anyone who travels abroad can testify, is omnipresent all over the world, hospitably patronized on every continent.

We believe the Internet has great potential as a new delivery system for movies. Several movie studios will be OnLine with their films within four to six months. They will be content encrypted, to protect these films on their way to American homes. If it becomes clear that more protection is needed, some of which might require congressional legislation, we will return to you for help.

Keep in mind it that the preeminence of the Copyright Industries as an American economic and creative prize is the prime reason why the Congress must stand guard, to preserve and defend Copyright against those who would loosen its protective bindings, or try to shrink it, or erode it. New technology makes possible, through the Internet, the illegal use of creative material without the permission of the owner nor any payment for its use. Creative property is private property. To take it without permission, without payment to its owners, collides with the core values of this society. Yet that is precisely what is happening. Otherwise rational people who would not dream of stealing a videocassette off the shelf of a Blockbuster store are using movies without permission or payment, which is, for many, the assumed normality of current Internet behavior. It is estimated that today some 370,000 movies are being downloaded, illegitimately, every day. By the end of the year it is estimated that one million illegal downloads will take place every day.

To repeat, creative property is private property. It cannot be casually pilfered simply because it is easy to do so. Moreover, with all the passion I can summon I tell this Committee that if Copyright is allowed to decay, then this nation will begin the slow undoing of an immense economic asset, which can squander our creative future. The question that the Congress must answer is: Who will invest huge amounts of private risk capital in the production of films if this creative property cannot be protected from theft?