TESTIMONY
OF
TUSHAR PATEL
VICE PRESIDENT AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, US WEB,

BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SEPTEMBER 16, 1997

Thank you Mr. Chairman, and distinguished Members of the Committee. My name is Tushar Patel and I am the Managing Director of an Internet development and hosting company called US Web.

We are a national Internet professional services firm helping clients develop Internet strategies and improve business processes using Internet-based technologies. With more than 40 corporate-owned and affiliate offices nationwide, we provide clients with business strategy consulting, need analysis, architecture planning, design, development, access, hosting, professional education and Internet certification services. We work with a diverse range of clients, from Fortune 500 corporations to hundreds of small, medium and large organizations. Just some of our clients include Harley-Davidson, Chevron, BellSouth, National Geographic, Zenith and Burger King. U.S. Web also has strategic alliances with technology leaders such as Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, SAP and Sun Microsystems.

I would like to describe some examples of how we provide our nationwide services: we have worked directly with a wide range of clients who are learning to use the Internet not only as a communications tool, but also to reengineer business processes. For Zenith, we're creating an entirely new communications channel so that the company can get closer to its customers. For Polk Audio, we're redefining how users actually interact and benefit from the company's Internet site. Using Internet technologies, we're streamlining and automating an entire new communications process between Thomasville Furniture and its dealer locations around the world. With US Web's national presence and regional face-to-face interaction with our clients, we understand the requirements for building Internet-based business solutions.

I applaud the introduction of both H.R. 2180 and H.R. 2281, because I make my living programming and managing content for parties that represent creative content and technology industries. I am not a lobbyist nor a lawyer. I just know the legislation you are proposing directly impacts the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Internet content professional like me.

US Web services clients that are on both sides of the on-line copyright liability issue. We designed the web site and a "pay-per-listen" program for platinum recording artists Deep Blue Something and have worked with the creative agency "Artville". Likewise, we have managed confidential Internet information for clients such as Zenith and Thomasville. This legislation is vital to allowing us to continue with the most vibrant part of our services, building and maintaining Intranets. We are in charge of allowing corporate information and mission critical applications like Purchase Orders, Commerce and Information dissemination to occur through the Internet over our servers.

We do not have the resources nor the expertise to manage "what" the content is, rather our expertise lies in making it available, or broadcasting it, to those authorized to see it. Our clients have world-wide demand for their content and we make delivery and distribution of that content feasible. When a successful musician retains us to allow members of his fan club to access special songs via a secure, password protected website, we build it. I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to verify that the songs do not infringe intellectual property rights when I employ only a few programmers.

Determining what is appropriate and not infringing should be left to specialized lawyers who work for the companies producing the content, not all of us who simply build the roads for them to drive on. Imagine if a construction company were liable because a car had an accident caused by the driver while driving on that road. While I don't mind being, and in fact depend on being a partner, in helping content companies to block access to unauthorized material, or to remove infringing material from a server under my company's control, I cannot exist with a liability potential that I cannot control or minimize.

US Web is also retained to build infrastructure that enables information to be shared over the Internet, like a project we're currently building for a Fortune 100 company. This information is extremely confidential and needs to be protected as it is transmitted on-line. We are, again, building the "means" for this to occur. If I were to be overly-exposed to potential copyright liability, this client corporation would have to "bring me into its inner circle" to share its content with me in order for me to build confidently their Internet project. This would no doubt stall the engagement (if not prevent it all together). Our entrepreneurial companies need the freedom to do what they do best: building the information superhighway to allow content owners to broadcast material that they, not we, determine fit for distribution.

The best information I can give to the Subcommittee for your consideration in further developing this legislation is to tell you what I do in my business on a day-to-day basis. Clients come to US Web and ask us to "broadcast" their content to the world via a "website". This broadcast is not controlled in the sense that it occurs within a government provided spectrum, rather it is uncontrolled and only occurs with several independent international companies cooperating (either voluntarily or not). We design the look, feel and navigation, and build a program.

Once we electronically receive the information the client desires to be broadcast, we place it on a "webserver", which is really just a "souped-up" version of your desktop computer, except it's more powerful. This server is connected via a leased line from the local phone company to an Internet hub facility run by a major Internet gateway provider. We receive the data to be broadcast from the client in the same way. Just the process of getting content from the client electronically and automatically could involve two local phone companies, two gateway providers and a long distance carrier....and so far only two computers have exchanged information without human supervision of the content, and the content has not even been broadcast yet.

In order for the public to view a client's material, our server must broadcast a "domain name". This is the "techno babble" you have heard containing the words "www.domain name.com". It is a verbal phone number of the server that houses the content, the kinds of servers that my company maintains. For this phone number to work, we cooperate with every service provider in existence by hosting a "Domain Name server". This machine keeps track of where to point which name, so if you type "www.domain name. com" we will know which server in the world holds that website. It is how we "direct a call." If we did not do this, it would be like certain area code and phone numbers not being accessible from certain phones.

So for someone to view content, like a piece of art, music, software or writing (and someday movies), they must rely on at least five or six companies cooperating from around the world, and I stress that there are no domestic borders where the Internet is concerned, and tens of thousands of domain servers, just to get them there. There is no single service provider involved in any one transmission. My servers regularly pass content and domain name resolution in the millions per hour. I have no knowledge or control over any of this information. To give you an analogy, asking me to know what my servers are doing at any one time is like asking the federal Department of Transportation what conversation is happening in every car on I-66 at any one time. There are many firms significantly smaller than US Web that also provide this management of services who have far less resources.

I also want to let the Subcommittee know that if we infringe the copyright laws ourselves, or if we affirmatively participate in an infringement because we have knowledge of the infringement and control over the transmission, we expect to be liable. But where it is unreasonable in certain situations to expect such knowledge or control, the threat of liability is unfair and counterproductive to the partnership we must have with content providers to make the Internet work the way it could and should. That is why we support H.R. 2180. It provides the balance and assurance Internet service providers need to continue building the world's networks in a free marketplace.

Routinely, in the course of serving websites and building Intranets, (Intranets are private versions of the Internet that companies use to communicate with people within their organization using Internet technology) we never see the actual content, rather we just see "streams of data code" that don't mean anything until it is viewed on a browser, such as "Netscape" or "Internet Explorer".

Music labels and recording artists routinely retain US Web to broadcast their content on-line. Our job is to make it available to thousands of people a week. The more content the artists are willing to broadcast, the better the systems we can build. We have a great interest in protecting their rights because if we do, we will get more business. By enriching the content, we are increasing demand for our services.

This technology and the information age really is changing America and small business. I started in the Internet business working out of my bedroom. I then hired two people and now am part of a multimillion dollar national service organization with over 600 people. I could not have done this if I had to research every page, picture and song that my clients provided me. In fact, I am helping partners protect their content through "pay-per-view" systems and programs designed to hunt for specific occurrences that a client specifies. I would rather partner with those of my clients who have intellectual property to protect that property via TECHNOLOGY rather than be forced out of my core competency because the law requires that I invest in hiring more lawyers than programmers. That's why the reassurance an exemption like the one contained in H.R. 2180 makes sense.

We created the technology to make the Internet the booming success that it is so even small players like me can grow to realize the "American dream". Let the same technology be used for those clients who are concerned about protecting their content. It seems to me that that is what H.R. 2281, implementing the WIPO treaties, is all about. If the goal is to get paid for every song, lyric or page of text, it would be more fruitful in my humble opinion to use technology to get paid instantly rather than sue everybody who ever broadcasted a domain name. The Internet only works through several small entities cooperating together. There is no wizard behind it that you can solely blame if you don't like what you see. If we take opposite sides and use lawsuits are our discourse, the very fabric and nature of what I do for a living is in jeopardy.

In your wisdom, please consider the needs of those of us who work hard every day so that consumers can thrive by getting information at their fingertips, and so content owners can have a private and healthy instant distribution system for the broadcasting of their works. Thank you for your consideration.