Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf
Page Number: 1.0

(Slip Opinion) 

OCTOBER  TERM,  2011 

1 

Syllabus 

NOTE:  Where  it  is  feasible,  a  syllabus  (headnote)  will  be  released,  as  is
being  done  in  connection  with  this  case,  at  the  time  the  opinion  is  issued.
The  syllabus  constitutes  no  part  of  the  opinion  of  the  Court  but  has  been
prepared  by  the  Reporter  of  Decisions  for  the  convenience  of  the  reader. 
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

GOLAN ET AL. v. HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

ET AL. 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 
THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

No. 10–545.  Argued October 5, 2011—Decided January 18, 2012 

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
(Berne),  which  took  effect  in  1886,  is  the  principal  accord  governing 
international  copyright  relations.    Berne’s  164  member  states  agree
to  provide  a  minimum  level  of  copyright  protection  and  to  treat  au-
thors  from  other  member  countries  as  well  as  they  treat  their  own. 
Of central importance in this case, Article 18 of Berne requires coun-
tries  to  protect  the  works  of  other  member  states  unless  the  works’
copyright term has expired in either the country where protection is 
claimed or the country of origin.  A different system of transnational
copyright protection long prevailed in this country.  Throughout most 
of  the  20th  century,  the  only  foreign  authors  eligible  for  Copyright 
Act  protection  were  those  whose  countries  granted  reciprocal  rights
to  American  authors  and  whose  works  were  printed  in  the  United
States.  Despite  Article  18,  when  the  United  States  joined  Berne  in
1989,  it  did  not  protect  any  foreign  works  lodged  in  the  U. S.  public 
domain, many of them works never protected here.  In 1994, howev-
er, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property 
Rights mandated implementation of Berne’s first 21 articles, on pain 
of enforcement by the World Trade Organization. 

In  response,  Congress  applied  the  term  of  protection  available  to
U. S. works to preexisting works from Berne member countries.  Sec-
tion 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) grants copy-
right  protection  to  works  protected  in  their  country  of  origin,  but 
lacking protection in the United States for any of three reasons: The
United States did not protect works from the country of origin at the
time  of  publication;  the  United  States  did  not  protect  sound  record-
ings  fixed  before  1972;  or  the  author  had  not  complied  with  certain