Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf
Page Number: 32.0

28 

GOLAN v. HOLDER 

Opinion of the Court 

might  sound  exactly  backwards:  Rights  typically  vest  at
the  outset  of  copyright  protection,  in  an  author  or 
rightholder.  See, e.g., 17 U. S. C. §201(a) (“Copyright in a 
work  protected  . . .  vests  initially  in  the  author  . . . .”).
Once the term of protection ends, the works do not revest
in  any  rightholder.  Instead,  the  works  simply  lapse  into 
the  public  domain.  See,  e.g.,  Berne,  Art.  18(1),  828
U. N. T. S.,  at  251  (“This  Convention  shall  apply  to  all 
works  which  . . .  have  not  yet  fallen  into  the  public  do-
main . . . .”).  Anyone has free access to the public domain,
but no one, after the copyright term has expired, acquires
ownership rights in the once-protected works. 

Congress  recurrently  adjusts  copyright  law  to  protect
categories  of  works  once  outside  the  law’s  compass.    For 
example,  Congress  broke  new  ground  when  it  extended 
copyright protection to foreign works in 1891, Act of Mar.
3,  §13,  26  Stat.  1110;  to  dramatic  works  in  1856,  Act  of
Aug.  18,  11  Stat.  138;  to  photographs  and  photographic 
negatives  in  1865,  Act  of  Mar.  3,  §1,  13  Stat.  540;  to  mo-
tion pictures in 1912, Act of Aug. 24, 37 Stat. 488; to fixed 
sound  recordings  in  1972,  Act  of  Oct.  15,  1971,  85  Stat. 
391;  and  to  architectural  works  in  1990,  Architectural 
Works  Copyright  Protection  Act,  104  Stat.  5133.    And  on 
several occasions, as recounted above, Congress protected 
works previously in the public domain, hence freely usable 
by  the  public.  See  supra,  at  15–19.  If  Congress  could 
grant protection to these works without hazarding height-
ened  First  Amendment  scrutiny,  then  what  free  speech 
principle  disarms  it  from  protecting  works  prematurely 
cast into the public domain for reasons antithetical to the
Berne Convention? 33 
—————— 

33 It  was  the  Fifth  Amendment’s  Takings  Clause—not  the  First 
Amendment—that  Congress  apparently  perceived  to  be  a  potential
check  on  its  authority  to  protect  works  then  freely  available  to  the