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Page Number: 67

22 

GOLAN v. HOLDER 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

Moviecraft Inc.) (testifying against restoration on grounds
similar to those set out, supra, at 10–13). 

This  argument,  whatever  its  intrinsic  merits,  is  an  ar­
gument  that  directly  concerns  a  private  benefit:  how  to
obtain more money from the sales of existing products.  It 
is not an argument about a public benefit, such as how to
promote or to protect the creative process.

Third,  the  majority  points  out  that  the  statute  “gives
[authors]  nothing  more  than  the  benefit  of  their  labors
during whatever time remains before the normal copyright
term expires.”  Ante, at 30.  But insofar as it suggests that
copyright  should  in  general  help  authors  obtain  greater
monetary rewards than needed to elicit new works, it rests 
upon  primarily  European,  but  not  American,  copyright 
concepts.  See supra, at 5–6. 

Fourth,  the  majority  argues  that  this  statutory  provi­
sion  is  necessary  to  fulfill  our  Berne  Convention  obliga­
tions.  Ante,  at  4–8.  The  Treaty,  in  Article  18,  says  that
the  “Convention  shall  apply  to  all  works  which,  at  the
moment  of  its  coming  into  force  [i.e.,  1989  in  the  case  of 
the  United  States]  have  not  yet  fallen  into  the  public
domain  in  the  country  of  origin  through  the  expiry  of  the
term  of  protection.”  Berne  Convention  for  the  Protection 
of Literary and Artistic Works, Art. 18(1), Sept. 9, 1886, as 
revised at Stockholm on July 14, 1967, 828 U. N. T. S. 221, 
251.  The  majority  and  Government  say  that  this  means 
we  must  protect  the  foreign  works  at  issue  here.    And 
since  the  Berne  Convention,  taken  as  a  whole,  provides 
incentives  for  the  creation  of  new  works,  I  am  willing  to
speculate,  for  argument’s  sake,  that  the  statute  might 
indirectly  encourage  production  of  new  works  by  making
the  United  States’  place  in  the  international  copyright 
regime more secure.

Still,  I  cannot  find  this  argument  sufficient  to  save  the 

statute.  For  one  thing,  this  is  a  dilemma  of  the  Govern­
ment’s  own  making.    The  United  States  obtained  the