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Page Number: 8

4 

GOLAN v. HOLDER 

Opinion of the Court 

ed in the United States.  See Act of Mar. 3, 1891, §3, 13, 26 
Stat.  1107,  1110;  Patry,  The  United  States  and  Inter-
national  Copyright  Law,  40  Houston  L. Rev.  749,  750
(2003).2  For domestic and foreign authors alike, protection 
hinged  on  compliance  with  notice,  registration,  and  re-
newal formalities. 

The United States became party to Berne’s multilateral, 
formality-free  copyright  regime  in  1989.    Initially,  Con-
gress adopted a “minimalist approach” to compliance with 
the Convention.  H. R. Rep. No. 100–609, p. 7 (1988) (here-
inafter  BCIA  House  Report).    The  Berne  Convention  Im-
plementation  Act  of  1988  (BCIA),  102  Stat.  2853,  made 
“only those changes to American copyright law that [were] 
clearly  required  under  the  treaty’s  provisions,”  BCIA
House  Report,  at  7.  Despite  Berne’s  instruction  that
member countries—including “new accessions to the Union”—
protect  foreign  works  under  copyright  in  the  country
of  origin,  Art.  18(1)  and  (4),  828  U. N. T. S.,  at  251,  the 
BCIA  accorded  no  protection  for  “any  work  that  is  in  the
public  domain  in  the  United  States,”  §12,  102  Stat.  2860. 
Protection  of  future  foreign  works,  the  BCIA  indicated,
satisfied  Article  18.  See  §2(3),  102  Stat.  2853  (“The 
amendments made by this Act, together with the law as it
exists on the date of the enactment of this Act, satisfy the
obligations  of  the  United  States  in  adhering  to  the  Berne 
Convention  . . . .”).    Congress  indicated,  however,  that  it 

—————— 

2 As  noted  by  the  Government’s  amici,  the  United  States  excluded 
foreign  works  from  copyright  not  to  swell  the  number  of  unprotected 
works available to the consuming public, but to favor domestic publish-
ing interests that escaped paying royalties to foreign authors.  See Brief 
for  International  Publishers  Association  et al.  as  Amici  Curiae  8–15. 
This free-riding, according to Senator Jonathan Chace, champion of the 
1891 Act, made the United States “the Barbary coast of literature” and
its  people  “the  buccaneers  of  books.”    S. Rep.  No.  622,  50th  Cong.,  1st 
Sess., p. 2 (1888).