Restoring Copyrights Ruled Violation of First Amendment

The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado granted summary judgment for a group of artists and businesses that challenged '514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, 17 U.S.C. '104A (the Act). Golan v. Holder, 01-cv-01854-LTB. The Act restored U.S. copyright protection to foreign authors' works that had fallen into the public domain, other than for expiration of copyright term (e.g., from failure to renew a copyright or to place a copyright notice on a published work) but were still protected in their own countries. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit had ruled for the federal government on the plaintiffs' challenges to the Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended U.S. copyright protection for 20 additional years, but remanded the case on the plaintiffs' First Amendment challenge to '514, which implemented Art. 18 of the international Berne Convention. See, Golan v. Gonzales, 501 F.3d 1179 (10th Cir. 2007).

On remand, the District of Colorado noted: “Congress has a legitimate interest in complying with the terms of the Berne Convention. The Berne Convention, however, affords each member nation discretion to restore the copyrights of foreign authors in a manner consistent with that member nation's own body of copyright law. In the United States, that body of law includes the bedrock principle that works in the public domain remain in the public domain. Removing works from the public domain violated Plaintiffs' vested First Amendment interests. In light of the discretion afforded it by the Berne Convention, Congress could have complied with the Convention without interfering with Plaintiffs' protected speech. ' Accordingly ' to the extent Section 514 suppresses the right of reliance parties to use works they exploited while the works were in the public domain ' Section 514 is substantially broader than necessary to achieve the Government's interest.”

The district court continued: “On the basis of the record before the Court, I conclude no evidence exists showing whether the Government's two additional justifications for implementing Section 514 ' Section 514 helps protect the copyright interests of United States authors abroad; and Section 514 corrects for historic inequities wrought on foreign authors who lost their United States copyrights through no fault of their own ' constitute important Government interests, or whether Section 514 is narrowly tailored to meet those interests.”

The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado granted summary judgment for a group of artists and businesses that challenged '514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, 17 U.S.C. '104A (the Act). Golan v. Holder, 01-cv-01854-LTB. The Act restored U.S. copyright protection to foreign authors' works that had fallen into the public domain, other than for expiration of copyright term (e.g., from failure to renew a copyright or to place a copyright notice on a published work) but were still protected in their own countries. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit had ruled for the federal government on the plaintiffs' challenges to the Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended U.S. copyright protection for 20 additional years, but remanded the case on the plaintiffs' First Amendment challenge to '514, which implemented Art. 18 of the international Berne Convention. See , Golan v. Gonzales , 501 F.3d 1179 (10th Cir. 2007).

On remand, the District of Colorado noted: “Congress has a legitimate interest in complying with the terms of the Berne Convention. The Berne Convention, however, affords each member nation discretion to restore the copyrights of foreign authors in a manner consistent with that member nation's own body of copyright law. In the United States, that body of law includes the bedrock principle that works in the public domain remain in the public domain. Removing works from the public domain violated Plaintiffs' vested First Amendment interests. In light of the discretion afforded it by the Berne Convention, Congress could have complied with the Convention without interfering with Plaintiffs' protected speech. ' Accordingly ' to the extent Section 514 suppresses the right of reliance parties to use works they exploited while the works were in the public domain ' Section 514 is substantially broader than necessary to achieve the Government's interest.”

The district court continued: “On the basis of the record before the Court, I conclude no evidence exists showing whether the Government's two additional justifications for implementing Section 514 ' Section 514 helps protect the copyright interests of United States authors abroad; and Section 514 corrects for historic inequities wrought on foreign authors who lost their United States copyrights through no fault of their own ' constitute important Government interests, or whether Section 514 is narrowly tailored to meet those interests.”