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Page Number: 2

2 

GOLAN v. HOLDER 

Syllabus 

U. S. statutory formalities.  Works encompassed by §514 are granted
the protection they would have enjoyed had the United States main-
tained  copyright  relations  with  the  author’s  country  or  removed  for-
malities  incompatible  with  Berne.    As  a  consequence  of  the  barriers 
to U. S. copyright protection prior to §514’s enactment, foreign works 
“restored”  to  protection  by  the  measure  had  entered  the  public  do-
main  in  this  country.    To  cushion  the  impact  of  their  placement  in
protected  status,  §514  provides  ameliorating  accommodations  for 
parties  who  had  exploited  affected  works  before  the  URAA  was
enacted. 

Petitioners  are  orchestra  conductors,  musicians,  publishers,  and 
others who formerly enjoyed free access to works §514 removed from 
the  public  domain.  They  maintain  that  Congress,  in  passing  §514,
exceeded its authority under the Copyright Clause and transgressed
First Amendment limitations.  The District Court granted the Attor-
ney General’s motion for summary judgment.  Affirming in part, the
Tenth  Circuit  agreed  that  Congress  had  not  offended  the  Copyright 
Clause,  but  concluded  that  §514  required  further  First  Amendment
inspection in light of Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U. S. 186.  On remand, 
the  District  Court  granted  summary  judgment  to  petitioners  on  the
First Amendment claim, holding that §514’s constriction of the public
domain was not justified by any of the asserted federal interests.  The 
Tenth Circuit reversed, ruling that §514 was narrowly tailored to fit
the  important  government aim  of  protecting  U. S.  copyright  holders’ 
interests abroad. 

Held: 

1. Section 514 does not exceed Congress’ authority under the Copy-

right Clause.  Pp. 13–23. 

(a) The text of the Copyright Clause does not exclude application
of  copyright  protection  to  works  in  the  public  domain.    Eldred  is 
largely dispositive of petitioners’ claim that the Clause’s confinement
of a copyright’s lifespan to a “limited Tim[e]” prevents the removal of
works from the public domain.  In Eldred, the Court upheld the Cop-
yright Term Extension Act (CTEA), which extended, by 20 years, the 
terms  of  existing  copyrights.    The  text  of  the  Copyright  Clause,  the
Court observed, contains no “command that a time prescription, once
set, becomes forever ‘fixed’ or ‘inalterable,’ ” and the Court declined to 
infer  any  such  command.    537  U. S.,  at  199.    The  construction  peti-
tioners tender here is similarly infirm.  The terms afforded works re-
stored by §514 are no less “limited” than those the CTEA lengthened. 
Nor  had  the  “limited  Tim[e]”  already  passed  for  the  works  at  issue
here—many  of  them  works formerly  denied  any  U. S.  copyright  pro-
tection—for a period of exclusivity must begin before it may end.  Pe-
titioners  also  urge  that  the  Government’s  position  would  allow  Con-