Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf
Page Number: 19.0

Cite as:  565 U. S. ____ (2012) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

was  that  limited  term  for  foreign  works  once  excluded 
from  U. S.  copyright  protection?    Exactly  “zero,”  petition-
ers  respond.    Brief  for  Petitioners  22  (works  in  question
“received  a  specific  term  of  protection  . . .  sometimes  ex-
pressly  set  to  zero”;  “at  the  end  of  that  period,”  they  “en-
tered the public domain”); Tr. of Oral Arg. 52 (by “refusing 
to provide any protection for a work,” Congress “set[s] the
term  at  zero,”  and  thereby  “tell[s]  us  when  the  end  has 
come”).  We find scant sense in this argument, for surely a
“limited  time”  of  exclusivity  must  begin  before  it  may 
end.16 

Carried to its logical conclusion, petitioners persist, the
Government’s position would allow Congress to institute a 
second  “limited”  term  after  the  first  expires,  a  third  after
that,  and  so  on.    Thus,  as  long  as  Congress  legislated  in
installments, perpetual copyright terms would be achieva-
ble.  As in Eldred, the hypothetical legislative misbehavior 
petitioners posit is far afield from the case before us.  See 
537  U. S.,  at  198–200,  209–210.    In  aligning  the  United
States with other nations bound by the Berne Convention,
and  thereby  according  equitable  treatment  to  once  dis-
favored  foreign  authors,  Congress  can  hardly  be  charged
with  a  design  to  move  stealthily  toward  a  regime  of  per-
petual copyrights. 

B 
Historical practice corroborates our reading of the Copy-
right  Clause  to  permit  full  U. S.  compliance  with  Berne. 
Undoubtedly,  federal  copyright  legislation  generally  has 
not  affected  works  in  the  public  domain.    Section  514’s 
disturbance  of  that  domain,  petitioners  argue,  distin- 

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16 Cf.  3  Nimmer  §9A.02[A][2],  at  9A–11,  n.  28  (“[I]t  stretches  the 
language  of  the  Berne  Convention  past  the  breaking  point  to  posit
that  following  ‘expiry  of  the  zero  term’  the  . . .  work  need  not  be
resurrected.”).