Admission is free and open to the public.
In passing the legislation Congress expressed concern that US authors would be deprived of royalties in Europe under the reciprocal terms of the European Union's 1993 term directive. Estates of famous composers testified that without additional protection, works would be used in ways the estates consider offensive. On the other side, publishers and distributors of public domain works argue that the longer term deprives the public of free use of material to which they should have access, and that the extra protection represents an unconstitutional windfall to copyright owners. Some academics criticize the law because it grants the extended term to purchasers of copyrights, and not the authors. These issues and others will be discussed by the evening's panelists.