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Page Number: 55

10 

GOLAN v. HOLDER 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

The  second  category  (works  that  entered  the  public
domain  due  to  a  lack  of  copyright  relations)  includes,
among  others,  all  works  published  in  Russia  and  other 
countries  of  the  former  Soviet  Union  before  May  1973
(when the U. S. S. R. joined the Universal Copyright Con­
vention (UCC)), all works published in the People’s Repub­
lic  of  China  before  March  1992  (when  bilateral  copyright 
relations  between  the  People’s  Republic  and  the  United
States  were  first  established),  all  South  Korean  works
published  before  October  1987  (when  South  Korea  joined 
the UCC), and all Egyptian and Turkish works published 
before March 1989 (when the United States joined Berne).
See id., at 2–10, and 11, nn. 2, 5, 6. 

The  third  category  covers  all  sound  recordings  from 
eligible  foreign  countries  published  after  February  15, 
1972.  The practical significance of federal copyright resto­
ration  to  this  category  of  works  is  less  clear,  since  these 
works received, and continued to receive, copyright protec­
tion under state law.  See 17 U. S. C. §301(c).

Apparently there are no precise figures about the num­
ber of works the Act affects, but in 1996 the then-Register 
of Copyrights, Marybeth Peters, thought that they “proba­
bly number in the millions.”  The Year in Review: Accom­
plishments and Objectives of the U. S. Copyright Office, 7 
Ford.  Intellectual  Property  Media  &  Entertainment  L. J.
25, 31 (1996). 

A 
The  provision  before  us  takes  works  from  the  public
domain, at least as of January 1, 1996.  See §104A(h)(2)(A) 
(setting “restoration” dates).  It then restricts the dissemi­
nation of those works in two ways. 

First,  “restored  copyright”  holders  can  now  charge  fees 
for  works  that  consumers  previously  used  for  free.  The 
price of a score of Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues Op. 
87, for example, has risen by a multiple of seven.  Brief for