Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf
Page Number: 63

18 

GOLAN v. HOLDER 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

214–215  (describing  equitable  reasons  for  applying  newly 
extended copyright terms to future and existing copyrights 
alike).  The  statute  before  us,  however,  does  not  directly 
elicit any new production.  Compare id., at 204–208; (ma­
jority opinion) (noting that statute’s extended term would 
apply  to  newly  created  material,  and  finding  that  the
determination of the likelihood of its eliciting new produc­
tion  in  practice  was  a  matter  for  Congress  to  determine),
with  id.,  at  243–267  (BREYER,  J.,  dissenting)  (expressing
the view that there is little likelihood, in practice, that the 
statute would elicit new material).  See also Walterscheid 
219 (the 1790 Congress likely thought it was substituting 
federal  protection  for  preexisting  state  common-law  pro­
tections);  Maher,  Copyright  Term,  Retrospective  Exten­
sion, and the Copyright Law of 1790 in Historical Context,
49  J.  Copyright  Soc.  USA  1021,  1023–1024,  and  n.  8
(2002)  (numerical  estimate  suggesting  that  1790  Act 
removed  only  a  small  number  of  books  from  public
domain).

The  other  statutes  to  which  the  majority  refers  are
private  bills,  statutes  retroactively  granting  protection  in 
wartime, or the like.  Ante, at 16–19; Act of Feb. 19, 1849, 
ch. 57, 9 Stat. 763 (Levi Corson); Act of June 23, 1874, ch.
534, 18 Stat., pt. 3, p. 618 (Tod  Helmuth); Act of Feb. 17, 
1898, ch. 29, 30 Stat. 1396 (Judson Jones); Act of Dec. 18, 
1919, ch. 11, 41 Stat. 368; Act of Sept. 25, 1941, ch. 421, 55
Stat.  732;  see  also  Evans  v.  Jordan,  9  Cranch  199  (1815)
(upholding  a  private  bill  restoring  patent  protection  to  a 
flour  mill).    But  special  circumstances,  like  wars,  hurri­
canes,  earthquakes,  and  other  disasters,  prevent  the 
realization in practice of a reasonable expectation of secur­
ing  or  maintaining  a  preexisting  right.  Private  bills  are 
designed  to  provide  special  exceptions  for  comparable 
equitable  reasons.    See  also  Act  of  Mar.  3,  1893,  ch.  215, 
27 Stat. 743 (similar, as far as I can tell).  To find in these 
laws  an  important  analogy  to  the  present  law,  which  for