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Page Number: 18.0

14 

GOLAN v. HOLDER 

Opinion of the Court 

259,  266  (2007).    Petitioners’  contrary  argument  relies
primarily  on  the  Constitution’s  confinement  of  a  copy-
right’s  lifespan  to  a  “limited  Tim[e].”    “Removing  works 
from  the  public  domain,”  they  contend,  “violates  the  ‘lim-
ited [t]imes’ restriction by turning a fixed and predictable
period  into  one  that  can  be  reset  or  resurrected  at  any 
time, even after it expires.”  Brief for Petitioners 22. 
  Our decision in Eldred is largely dispositive of petition-
ers’  limited-time  argument.  There  we  addressed  the 
question whether Congress violated the Copyright Clause
when it extended, by 20 years, the terms of existing copy-
rights.  537 U. S., at 192–193 (upholding Copyright Term
Extension Act (CTEA)).  Ruling that Congress acted with-
in constitutional bounds, we declined to infer from the text 
of  the  Copyright  Clause  “the  command  that  a  time  pre-
scription, once set, becomes forever ‘fixed’ or ‘inalterable.’ ”  
Id.,  at  199.  “The  word  ‘limited,’ ”  we  observed,  “does  not 
convey a meaning so constricted.”  Ibid.  Rather, the term 
is  best  understood  to  mean  “confine[d]  within  certain
bounds,” “restrain[ed],” or “circumscribed.”  Ibid. (internal
quotation  marks  omitted).    The  construction  petitioners 
tender  closely  resembles  the  definition  rejected  in  Eldred 
and is similarly infirm. 

The  terms  afforded  works  restored  by  §514  are  no  less 
“limited”  than  those  the  CTEA  lengthened.    In  light  of 
Eldred,  petitioners  do  not  here  contend  that  the  term
Congress  has  granted  U. S.  authors—their  lifetimes,  plus
70  years—is  unlimited.    See  17  U. S. C.  §302(a).    Nor  do 
petitioners  explain  why  terms  of  the  same  duration,  as 
applied  to  foreign  works,  are  not  equally  “circumscribed”
and “confined.”  See Eldred, 537 U. S., at 199.  Indeed, as 
earlier noted, see supra, at 2, 10, the copyrights of restored
foreign  works  typically  last  for  fewer  years  than  those  of 
their domestic counterparts. 

The  difference,  petitioners  say,  is  that  the  limited  time
had already passed for works in the public domain.  What