Golan v. Holder
The Court upheld a federal law that restored U.S. copyright protection to millions of foreign works — including films, books, and music by composers like Prokofiev and Shostakovich — that had previously been free for anyone to use in America.
The ruling confirms that Congress can pull works out of the public domain to bring the United States into compliance with an international copyright treaty, without violating either the Copyright Clause's 'limited times' language or the First Amendment.
“a “limited time” of exclusivity must begin before it may end.”
The Court's rejection of the argument that works once denied protection had already used up their limited copyright term.
How it got here: A federal trial court granted summary judgment to the government; the Tenth Circuit sent the First Amendment claim back; the trial court then ruled for the challengers, and the Tenth Circuit reversed, prompting Supreme Court review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Orchestra conductors, musicians, publishers, and others had long used foreign works — like symphonies by Prokofiev and Shostakovich — that were free to copy because they lacked U.S. copyright protection. A 1994 law responding to an international trade agreement restored copyright protection to many of these foreign works, removing them from the public domain and requiring users to pay for what had been free.
The question before the Court
Could Congress give copyright protection back to foreign books, films, and music that had already fallen into America's public domain?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that Congress could give copyright protection back to foreign works that had already fallen into America's public domain. The Constitution's requirement that copyright terms be "limited" does not mean that a term, once set (even a term of zero protection), can never be changed; a period of exclusivity must begin before it can end, and Congress has repeatedly restored lapsed protection to works and inventions throughout American history.
The Court also rejected the argument that the law violates the First Amendment. Because the law left in place copyright's built-in free-speech safeguards — the rule that ideas and facts stay free for anyone to use, and the fair-use defense — and because Congress eased the transition for people who had relied on these works being free, no heightened First Amendment scrutiny was required.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Orchestras, publishers, libraries, and film archives that once used these foreign works for free must now pay licensing fees or limit themselves to fair use. Smaller nonprofit groups, like school orchestras, may lose access to works they can no longer afford, while the U.S. gains leverage to insist that other countries protect American works abroad.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision, not subject to further proceedings. The restored copyrights remain in effect, and users of the affected foreign works must now pay licensing fees or rely on fair use. The decision leaves unresolved the broader 'orphan works' problem — locating unknown copyright owners — which the Court said is better addressed by Congress than by courts.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Congress must fix the broader problem of 'orphan works' — older works whose copyright owners are hard to find — saying that is a matter for legislation, not litigation. It also did not extend heightened First Amendment scrutiny to ordinary copyright laws generally.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Breyer
“Worst of all, “restored copyright” protection removes material from the public domain.”The dissent's core objection that the law strips away material the public once freely used.
Justice Breyer argued that copyright's whole purpose is to encourage the creation of new works, and this law does nothing to elicit any new work, since it applies only to material that already exists. He would have struck down the law, reasoning that pulling works out of the public domain without any incentive to create imposes real costs — higher prices, administrative burdens in tracking down 'orphan work' owners, and restrictions on speech — that outweigh any benefit under the Copyright Clause and raise serious First Amendment concerns.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court read the Constitution's 'limited Times' language, which caps how long a copyright can last, as not barring Congress from ever removing a work from the public domain — the earlier ruling in Eldred v. Ashcroft had already rejected the idea that a copyright term, once set, is forever fixed.
- Because a period of exclusivity must begin before it can end, the Court rejected the challengers' claim that these foreign works already had their 'limited time' — a term of zero — and so could never be protected again.
- The Court looked at historical practice, including the first Copyright Act of 1790 and later private bills and general statutes, and found a repeated pattern of Congress granting protection to works and inventions that had previously lost or lacked protection, undermining the claim that the public domain is off-limits to Congress.
- The Court held that the Constitution's goal of promoting 'the Progress of Science' — meaning the spread of knowledge — is not limited to encouraging the creation of brand-new works; encouraging wider distribution of existing works also counts, so a law needs no new-work incentive to be valid.
- Turning to the First Amendment, the Court applied the framework from Eldred, under which copyright laws that leave in place the built-in free-speech safeguards — the idea/expression distinction, which keeps facts and ideas free for anyone to use, and the fair use defense — do not trigger heightened judicial scrutiny.
- Because the challenged law left both of these safeguards intact and included transition provisions easing the impact on people who had relied on the free public-domain status of the works, the Court concluded the law survived First Amendment review without need for stricter scrutiny.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Eldred v. Ashcroft (537 U. S. 186)
The Court relied on Eldred's reasoning to reject both the Copyright Clause and First Amendment challenges here.