Golan v. Gonzales

F IL E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit

PUBLISH September 4, 2007
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
U N IT E D ST A T E S C O U R T O F A P PE A L S Clerk of Court

T E N T H C IR C U IT

LA W REN CE G O LA N ; ESTA TE OF
R ICHA RD K A PP; S.A . PU BLISHING
C O, IN C., d/b/a ESS.A .Y .
R ECOR DIN G S; SY M PH O N Y OF THE
CANYONS; RON HALL d/b/a
FESTIV AL FILM S; and JO H N
M cDONOUGH, d/b/a TIM ELESS
VIDEO ALTERN ATIVES
IN TERNATIO NAL,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.
No. 05-1259
ALBERTO R. GONZALES, in his
official capacity as Attorney General of
the United States; and M AR YB ETH
PETERS, Register of Copyrights,
Copyright Office of the
United States,

Defendants-Appellees,

IN TER NATIO N A L C OA LITIO N FOR
COPYRIG HT PROTECTIO N,

Amicus Curiae.

A ppeal from the U nited States D istrict C ourt
for the D istrict of C olorado
(D .C . N o. 1:01-cv-01854 L T B -B N B )
Lawrence Lessig, Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School, Stanford,
California (Hugh Q. Gottschalk and Carolyn J. Fairless, W heeler Trigg Kennedy
LLP, Denver, Colorado, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

John S. Koppel, Appellate Staff Civil Division (Peter D. Keisler, Assistant
Attorney General, W illiam J. Leone, United States A ttorney, and W illiam Kanter,
Appellate Staff Civil Division, W ashington, D.C., with him on the brief), for
Defendants-Appellees.

Eric M . Lieberman and David B. Goldstein, Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard,
Krinsky & Lieberman, P.C., New York, New York, filed an Amicus Curiae brief
in support of Defendants-A ppellees.

Before H E N R Y , B R ISC O E , and L U C E R O , Circuit Judges.

H E N R Y , Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs in this case range from orchestra conductors, educators,

performers, and publishers to film archivists and motion picture distributors. They

challenge two acts of Congress, the Copyright Term Extension Act (“CTEA”),

Pub. L. No. 105-298, §§ 102(b) and (d), 112 Stat. 2827-28 (1998) (amending 17

U.S.C. §§ 302, 304), and § 514 of the U ruguay Round Agreements Act (“URAA”),

Pub. L. No. 103-465, 108 Stat. 4809, 4976-80 (1994), codified at 17 U.S.C. §§

104A, 1 109.

1
Section 104A provides in the pertinent part:

(a) A utomatic protection and term.–
(continued...)

2
 Also known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, the CTEA

increased the duration of existing and future copyrights from life-plus-50-years to

life-plus-70-years. Section 514 of the URAA implements Article 18 of the Berne

Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic works. Ushered into being

in 1886 at the behest of Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, an

organization founded by Victor Hugo and dedicated to obtaining protection for

literary and artistic w orks, the Berne Convention requires member countries to

afford the same copyright protection to foreign authors as they provide their own

authors. In this case, congressional compliance with the Berne Convention meant

1
(...continued)
(1) Term.
(A) Copyright subsists, in accordance with this section, in restored works, and
vests automatically on the date of restoration.
. . . .
(h) D efinitions. For purposes of this section and section 109(a):
. . . .
(6) The term “restored work” means an original work of authorship that–
(A) is protected under subsection (a);
(B) is not in the public domain in its source country through expiration of term
of protection;
(C) is in the public domain in the United States due to–
(I) noncompliance with formalities imposed at any time by United
States copyright law, including failure of renewal, lack of proper notice,
or failure to comply with any manufacturing requirements; (ii) lack of
subject m atter protection in the case of sound recordings fixed before
February 15, 1972; or (iii) lack of national eligibility; and
(D) has at least one author or rightholder who was, at the time the work was
created, a national or domiciliary of an eligible country, and if published was
first published in an eligible country and not published in the United States
during the 30-day period following publication in such eligible country.

3
copyrighting some foreign works in the public domain. 2

Plaintiffs argue the CTEA extends existing copyrights in violation of the

“limited Times” provision of the Constitution’s C opyright Clause. With regard to

the URAA, plaintiffs contend § 514 shrinks the public domain and thereby

violates the limitations on congressional power inherent in the Copyright Clause.

In addition, plaintiffs argue that § 514’s removal of works from the public domain

interferes with their First A mendment right to free expression.

The district court dismissed plaintiffs’ CTEA claim and granted summary

judgment for the government on plaintiffs’ URAA challenges. W e exercise

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm the district court’s dismissal

of the CTEA claim as foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Eldred v.

Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003). W e also agree with the district court that § 514 of

the URAA has not exceeded the limitations inherent in the Copyright Clause.

Nevertheless, we hold that plaintiffs have shown sufficient free expression

interests in works removed from the public domain to require First Amendment

2
Article 18 of the Berne Convention provides in the pertinent part:

(1) T his Convention shall apply to all works which, at the mom ent of
its coming into force, have not yet fallen into the public domain in the
country of origin through the expiry of the term of protection.
(2) If, however, through the expiry of the term of protection which was
previously granted, a work has fallen into the public domain, of the
country where the protection is claimed, that work shall not be
protected anew [.]

4
scrutiny of § 514. On this limited basis, we remand for proceedings consistent

with this opinion.

I. B A C K G R O U N D

Each plaintiff in this case relies on artistic works in the public domain for

his or her livelihood. Lawrence Golan, for example, performs and teaches works

by foreign composers including Dmitri Shostakovich and Igor Stravinsky. Before

the CTEA, plaintiffs anticipated that certain works would soon outlive copyright

protection and enter the public domain. The CTEA delayed this moment by 20

years. Prior to the URAA, each plaintiff utilized or performed works by foreign

artists in the public domain, such as Sergei Prokofiev’s renowned “Peter and the

W olf.” Since the passage of the URAA, plaintiffs must pay higher performance

fees and sheet music rentals as well as other royalties. In many cases, these costs

are prohibitive.

Plaintiffs filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of

Colorado arguing that both the CTEA and the URAA are unconstitutional. The

court concluded the Supreme Court’s decision in Eldred precluded plaintiffs’

challenge to the CTEA and granted summary judgment to the government on

plaintiffs’ two URAA claims. Golan v. Ashcroft, 310 F. Supp. 2d 1215, 1218 (D .

Colo. 2004). Reasoning that “C ongress has historically demonstrated little

compunction about removing copyrightable materials from the public domain,” the

5
district court ruled that Congress had the power to enact § 514 of the URAA under

the Copyright Clause. Golan v. Gonzales, No. Civ. 01-B-1854(BNB), 2005 W L

914754, at *14 (D. Colo. Aug. 24, 2005). The court also granted summary

judgment on plaintiffs’ First Amendment claim, on the theory they had no

protected interest in the now-copyrighted works. This appeal followed.

II. ST A N D A R D O F R E V IE W

W e review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment. Steffy v.

Orman, 461 F.3d 1218, 1221 (10th Cir. 2006). Summary judgment is appropriate

only when “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact.” F ED . R. C IV . P.

56(c). W e also examine de novo the district court’s conclusions regarding the

Constitution. O’Connor v. Washburn Univ., 416 F.3d 1216, 1223 (10th Cir.

2005). “[I]t is also appropriate to bear in mind . . . that in the enactment of a

statute Congress is presumed to act with knowledge of controlling constitutional

limitations or proscriptions and with an intent and purpose to avoid their

contravention.” Wells, by Gillig, v. Att’y General of the United States, 201 F.2d

556, 560 (10th Cir. 1953); see also INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 944 (1983) (“W e

begin . . . with the presumption that the challenged statute is valid.”).

III. D ISC USSIO N

Plaintiffs claim that the CTEA’s 20-year extension of existing copyrights

violates the Copyright Clause’s “limited Times” provision. In addition, they

6
contend that the URAA’s removal of works from the public domain exceeds the

authority granted to Congress under the Copyright Clause. Finally, plaintiffs

maintain that § 514 of the URAA must be subject to First Amendment review

because it has altered the traditional contours of copyright protection. Since

familiarity with the foundations of copyright law is crucial to understanding the

dispute, we begin with an outline of basic copyright principles.

Under the Copyright Clause, Congress may “promote the Progress of

Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors . . . the

exclusive Right to their W ritings.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 8. The Supreme

Court has explained that “[the Clause] is intended to motivate the creative activity

of authors and inventors by the provision of a special reward, and to allow the

public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive

control has expired.” Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S.

417, 429 (1984). By encouraging creative expression through limited monopolies,

the Copyright Clause “promot[es] broad public availability of literature, music,

and the other arts.” Twentieth Century M usic Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 156

(1975). “[O]nce the . . . copyright monopoly has expired, the public may use the .

. . work at will and without attribution.” Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox

Film Corp., 539 U.S. 23, 33-34 (2003). These imaginative works inspire new

creations, which in turn inspire others, hopefully, ad infinitum. This cycle is what

7
makes copyright “the engine of free expression.” Harper & Row Publishers Inc.

v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539, 558 (1985).

Congress’s power to bestow copyrights is broad. See Eldred, 537 U.S. at

205 (“[I]t is Congress that has been assigned the task of defining the scope of the

limited monopoly that should be granted to authors . . . in order to give the public

appropriate access to their work product.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).

But it is not boundless. The Copyright Clause itself limits Congress’s power as to

what kinds of works can be copyrighted and for how long. For instance, in order

to be copyrightable, a work must be original. Feist Publ’ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel.

Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 345 (1991) (“The sine qua non of copyright is originality

. . . . Originality is a constitutional requirement.”). In addition, a copyright must

be limited in duration. Dastar, 539 U.S. at 37 (noting that Congress cannot

“create[] a species of perpetual . . . copyright”). The rationale underlying this

limitation is that an infinite copyright would deprive the public of the benefit – the

right to use and enjoy the expression – that it is supposed to receive in exchange

for the grant of monopoly privileges to the author for a discrete period of time.

See id. at 33-34 (“The rights of a . . . copyright holder are part of a carefully

crafted bargain under which, once the . . . copyright monopoly has expired, the

public may use the . . . work at will and without attribution.”) (internal citation

and quotation marks omitted).

8
 The Supreme Court has recognized that the First A mendment can limit

Congress’s power under the Copyright Clause. Eldred, 537 U.S. at 219-21

(indicating that copyright acts are not “categorically immune from challenges

under the First Amendment”) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court has

emphasized, however, that “copyright’s built-in First Amendment

accommodations” – the idea/expression dichotomy and the fair use defense –

generally protect the public’s First Amendment interest in copyrighted works. Id.

at 219-20.

The first of these “built-in safeguards,” the idea/expression dichotomy,

denies copyright protection “to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of

operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is

described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in [a copyrighted] work.” 17 U.S.C.

§ 102(b). It reserves to authors, however, the right to exploit their “expression,”

id., a term that refers to “the particular pattern of words, lines and colors, or

musical notes” that comprise a work. R OBERT A. G ORMAN , C OPYRIGHT L AW 23

(2d ed. 2006).

The second safeguard, the fair use defense, allows the public to utilize a

copyrighted work “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting,

teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.”

17 U.S.C. § 107. The defense protects the public’s First Amendment interest in an

9
author’s original expression by “afford[ing] considerable latitude for scholarship

and comment, and even for parody.” Eldred, 537 U.S. at 220 (internal citations

and quotation marks omitted).

Although these built-in free speech safeguards w ill ordinarily insulate

legislation from First Amendment review, the Eldred Court indicated that such

review is warranted w hen an act of Congress has “altered the traditional contours

of copyright protection.” Id. at 221. The Court did not define the “traditional

contours of copyright protection.” However, as we discuss in detail below, one of

these traditional contours is the principle that once a work enters the public

domain, no individual – not even the creator – may copyright it.

W ith these principles in mind, we turn to plaintiffs’ challenges to the CTEA

and URAA.

A. T HE CTEA

The Copyright Clause provides: “The Congress shall have Power . . . To

promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to

Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective W ritings and

Discoveries[.]” U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 8. Plaintiffs contend the CTEA

violates the “limited Times” prescription by increasing the term from life-plus-50-

years to life-plus-70-years. M ore specifically, they argue that “the Framers w ould

have considered the [life-plus-70] term to be so long as to be effectively

10
perpetual.” Aplts’ Br. at 55.

Analyzing the CTEA in light of the Clause’s inherent limitations, the

Supreme Court upheld the Act in Eldred. 537 U.S. at 194 (“[W]e reject

petitioners’ challenges to the CTEA. . . . Congress acted within its authority and

did not transgress constitutional limitations.”). Nevertheless, plaintiffs attempt to

distinguish Eldred, invoking the Court’s acknowledgment that “[p]etitioners [did]

not challenge the ‘life-plus-70-years’ timespan itself.” Id. at 193. Plaintiffs

therefore contend that Eldred does not foreclose the argument that the CTEA’s

extension of all future copyrights to a life-plus-70-years timespan violates the

Copyright Clause. Though plaintiffs may be correct that the Eldred Court did not

technically address this term, the rationale underlying Eldred compels us to

conclude that the CTEA-imposed timespan passes constitutional muster.

The Ninth Circuit recently upheld the dismissal of a nearly-identical CTEA

challenge in Kahle v. Gonzales, 487 F.3d 697 (9th Cir. 2007). The plaintiffs in

Kahle, like plaintiffs here, argued that the CTEA’s life-plus-70-years copyright

term violated the “limited Times” prescription because the Framers would have

viewed it as “effectively perpetual.” Id. at 699 (internal quotation marks omitted).

As the Ninth Circuit observed, the Eldred Court “clearly grasped the role ‘limited

Times’ play in the copyright scheme and the Framers’ understanding of that

phrase.” Id. at 700. Indeed, the Eldred Court emphasized that our constitutional

11
scheme charges Congress, and not federal courts, with “the task of defining the

scope of the limited monopoly that should be granted to authors.” 537 U.S. at 205

(internal quotation marks omitted). As the Kahle court reasoned, “the outer

boundary of ‘limited Times’ is determined by weighing the impetus provided to

authors by longer terms against the benefit provided to the public by shorter terms.

That weighing is left to Congress, subject to rationality review.” Kahle, 487 F.3d

at 701. This rationale is clearly consistent with Eldred. See 537 U.S. at 204

(reviewing the CTEA merely to determine “whether it is a rational exercise of the

legislative authority conferred by the copyright clause”).

W e agree with the Kahle court’s holding that Eldred precludes a challenge

to the 20-year term extension. See Eldred, 537 U.S. at 208 (“W e cannot conclude

that the CTEA – which continues the unbroken congressional practice of treating

future and existing copyrights in parity for term extension purposes – is an

impermissible exercise of Congress’ power under the Copyright Clause.”).

Plaintiffs here, like the plaintiffs in Kahle, “provide no compelling reason why w e

should depart from a recent Supreme Court decision.” Kahle, 487 F.3d at 701.

B. T HE URAA

Plaintiffs present two arguments regarding the constitutionality of § 514 of

the U RAA. First, they claim that § 514 exceeds the authority granted to Congress

in the Copyright Clause. Second, they maintain § 514 has disrupted the traditional

12
contours of copyright protection and thus demands First Amendment scrutiny. W e

begin with the contention that Congress has overstepped its Article I authority.

1. Section 514 does not violate the C opyright Clause

Plaintiffs ground their argument that § 514 transgresses the bounds of

Congress’s Article I authority in the text of the Copyright Clause. They contend

that § 514’s extension of copyright protection to works in the public domain

eviscerates any limitations imposed by the “limited Times” prescription and the

Progress Clause. In essence, plaintiffs aver that unless we hold that the Progress

Clause and the “limited Times” prescription prevent Congress from copyrighting

works in the public domain, Congress could adopt a practice of copyrighting

works as they fall into public domain. This would prevent the public from ever

gaining unfettered access to the expressions.

W e agree it would be troubling if Congress adopted a consistent practice of

restoring works in the public domain in an effort to confer perpetual monopolies.

But this argument is similar to one the Eldred plaintiffs raised, and, like the

Eldred Court, we are mindful that “a regime of perpetual copyrights is clearly not

the situation before us.” Eldred, 537 U.S. at 209.

Plaintiffs cite Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), in support of

their contentions. There, the Supreme Court concluded that Congress could not

issue a patent when the invention had resided in the public domain before the

13
inventor had applied for the patent. For both their Progress Clause and “limited

Times” arguments, plaintiffs rely heavily on the Graham Court’s statement that

“Congress may not authorize the issuance of patents whose effects are to remove

existent knowledge from the public domain, or to restrict free access to materials

already available.” Id. at 6. Plaintiffs contend there is no meaningful distinction

between copyrights and patents that would prevent this court from applying

Graham here.

The D.C. Circuit confronted and rejected an identical argument in Luck’s

M usic Library, Inc. v. Gonzales, 407 F.3d 1262 (D.C. Cir. 2005), a case in which

the plaintiffs maintained that § 514’s copyright of works in the public domain

violated the Copyright Clause. In rejecting the contention, the D.C. Circuit noted

that

[Graham] dealt with patents rather than copyright, and the ideas
applicable to one do [not] automatically apply to the other. For
example, the Eldred Court saw the ‘quid pro quo’ idea as having a
special force in patent law, where the patentee, in exchange for
exclusive rights must disclose his ‘discoveries’ against his presumed
will. In contrast, the author is eager to disclose her w ork.

407 F.3d at 1266.

In addition to these distinctions, the Eldred Court observed that while

patents “prevent full use by others of the inventor’s knowledge,” “copyright gives

the holder no monopoly on any knowledge.” 537 U.S. at 217. W e further note

that the language plaintiffs cite from Graham is taken from a discussion about the

14
Progress Clause in the context of conditions for patentability. The sentence

following the one plaintiffs emphasize reads: “Innovation, advancement, and

things which add to the sum of useful knowledge are inherent requisites in a

patent system which by constitutional command must ‘promote the Progress of . . .

the useful Arts.’” Graham, 383 U.S. at 6 (emphasis supplied). In fact, the

Graham Court only mentioned copyright in a footnote w hen it explained that it

had omitted the copyright portion of the Patent and Copyright Clause because it

was “not relevant” to the disposition of the case. Id. at 6 n.1. Thus, we conclude

that plaintiffs have thrust onto Graham a burden it w as never intended to bear.

W e decline to read Graham as standing for the proposition that, in the context of

copyright, the public domain is a threshold that Congress may not “traverse in

both directions.” Aplts’ Br. at 50.

Furthermore, the Graham Court emphasized that the Constitution assigns

Congress the task of “implement[ing] the stated purpose of the Framers by

selecting the policy which in its judgment best effectuates the constitutional aim.”

383 U.S. at 6. As discussed above, the Eldred Court echoed this refrain. See

Eldred, 537 U.S. at 205 (“[I]t is Congress that has been assigned the task of

defining the scope of the limited monopoly that should be granted to authors . . . in

order to give the public appropriate access to their work product.”) (internal

quotation marks omitted). The clear import of Eldred is that Congress has

15
expansive powers w hen it legislates under the Copyright Clause, and this court

may not interfere so long as Congress has rationally exercised its authority. See

Eldred, 237 U.S. at 213 (searching for a “rational basis for the conclusion that the

CTEA ‘Promotes the Progress of Science’”). Here, we do not believe that the

decision to comply with the Berne Convention, which secures copyright

protections for American works abroad, is so irrational or so unrelated to the aims

of the Copyright Clause that it exceeds the reach of congressional power. Id. at

208 (emphasizing that the Court was “not at liberty to second-guess congressional

determinations and policy judgments of this order, however debatable or arguably

unwise they may be”).

Nevertheless, legislation promulgated pursuant to the Copyright Clause

must still comport with other express limitations of the Constitution. Saenz v.

Roe, 526 U .S. 489, 508 (1999) (“Article I of the Constitution grants Congress

broad power to legislate in certain areas. Those legislative powers are, however,

limited not only by the scope of the Framers’ affirmative delegation, but also by

the principle that they may not be exercised in a way that violates other specific

provisions of the Constitution.”) (internal quotation marks omitted); Buckley v.

Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 132 (1976) (“Congress has plenary authority in all areas in

which it has substantive legislative jurisdiction so long as the exercise of that

authority does not offend some other constitutional restriction.”) (internal citation

16
omitted). Thus, even if Congress has not exceeded its Article I authority, § 514

may still be subject to First Amendment review.

2. C ongress’s R em oval of W orks from the Public D omain A lters the
T raditional C ontours of C opyright Protection and R equires First
A m en dment S cru tin y

W e begin our First Amendment analysis by examining the intersection of

the Copyright Clause and the First Amendment. In doing so, we address the

Eldred Court’s holding that the CTEA’s extension of existing copyrights did not

require First Amendment scrutiny and discuss the Court’s suggestion that an act of

Congress would only be subject to First Amendment review if it “altered the

traditional contours of copyright protection.” 537 U.S. at 221. Based on the

Eldred Court’s analysis, we examine the bedrock principle of copyright law that

works in the public domain remain there and conclude that § 514 alters the

traditional contours of copyright protection by deviating from this principle. W e

then explain how this deviation implicates plaintiffs’ First A mendment interest in

the works at issue and determine that copyright’s two built-in free speech

safeguards – the idea/expression dichotomy and the fair use defense – do not

adequately protect the First Amendment interests. Finally, we note that, unlike the

CTEA, the U RAA does not adopt supplemental free speech safeguards.

a. The Copyright Clause & the First Amendment

It is clear that the Copyright Clause is meant to foster values enshrined in

17
the First A mendment. See Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 558 (observing that “the

Framers intended copyright itself to be the engine of free expression”). The

Clause’s primary purpose is to provide authors with incentives to produce works

that w ill benefit the public. See id. at 546 (“The monopoly created by copyright

thus rew ards the individual author in order to benefit the public.”) (internal

quotation marks omitted) (emphasis supplied); Aiken, 422 U.S. at 156 (“The

immediate effect of our copyright law is to secure a fair return for an ‘author’s’

creative labor. But the ultim ate aim is, by this incentive, to stimulate artistic

creativity for the general public good.”) (emphasis supplied); M azer v. Stein, 347

U.S. 201, 219 (1954) (“The economic philosophy behind the clause empow ering

Congress to grant [] copyrights is the conviction that encouragement of individual

effort by personal gain is the best way to advance public welfare through the

talents of authors . . . in ‘. . . [the] useful Arts.’”); Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286

U.S. 123, 127 (1932) (“The sole interest of the U nited States and the primary

object in conferring the monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public

from the labors of authors.”).

In Eldred, the connection between the First Amendment and copyright

prompted the Court to reject the proposition that “copyrights [are] categorically

immune from challenges under the First Amendment.” 537 U.S. at 221 (internal

quotation marks omitted). However, under the facts of Eldred, copyright’s

18
inherent free speech protections obviated any need for First Amendment review of

the C TEA. The Court based this holding on three factors. First, the C ourt

concluded that copyright law’s “built-in First Amendment accommodations” – the

idea/expression dichotomy and fair use defense – adequately protected the First

Amendment interests at stake. Id. at 219. Second, the Court reasoned that the

plaintiffs had only a trivial interest in the copyrighted w orks because “[t]he First

Amendment securely protects the freedom to make – or decline to make – one’s

own speech; it bears less heavily when speakers assert the right to make other

people’s speeches.” Id. at 221 (emphasis supplied). Finally, the Court noted that

the CTEA provided supplemental protections to ensure that the Act did not

diminish the public’s access to protected expression. Id. at 220. The Court

further indicated that legislation could be subject to First A mendment scrutiny if it

“altered the traditional contours of copyright protection.” Id. at 221.

b. The principle that works in the public domain remain there is a
traditional contour of copyright protection that § 514 alters

W e begin our analysis of § 514 by exploring the traditional contours of

copyright protection. The Eldred Court did not define the “traditional contours of

copyright protection,” and we do not find, nor do the parties suggest that the

phrase appears in any other federal authority that might shed light on its meaning.

Nevertheless, the term seems to refer to something broader than copyright’s built-

in free speech accommodations.

19
 Our understanding of the traditional contours of copyright protection has

both a functional and a historical component. W ith regard to the functional

aspect, we note that a contour is “an outline” or “the general form or structure of

something.” W EBSTER ’ S N INTH N EW C OLLEGIATE D ICTIONARY 284 (1984).

Because the term copyright refers to a process as well as a form of intellectual

property rights, we assess whether removing a w ork from the public domain alters

the ordinary procedure of copyright protection. Relatedly, we explore the way in

which the public domain delimits the scope of copyright protection. In addition,

the Eldred Court’s use of the word “traditional” to modify “contours” suggests

that Congress’s historical practice with respect to copyright and the public domain

must inform our inquiry. Based on these criteria, we conclude that the traditional

contours of copyright protection include the principle that works in the public

domain remain there and that § 514 transgresses this critical boundary.

i. Copyright Sequence

Although the specific requirements for perfecting a copyright have changed

over the years, the process has always begun when an author generates an original

expression. The 1909 Copyright Act required an author seeking protection to

attach notice to any distributed copies of his or her work. M oreover, the author

could not initiate an infringement action or apply for a renewal unless he or she

had formally registered the work with the copyright office. The 1976 Act removed

20
many of the consequences for failure to register or attach notice, and, in 1989, the

United States effectively abandoned all formalities as a condition of compliance

with the Berne Convention. Thus, today, a limited copyright attaches at the

moment a work is created. 3 W hen the copyright expires at the end of the statutory

period, the w ork becomes part of the public domain. Until § 514, every statutory

scheme preserved the same sequence. A work progressed from 1) creation; 2) to

copyright; 3) to the public domain. Under § 514, the copyright sequence no longer

necessarily ends with the public domain: indeed, it may begin there. Thus, by

copyrighting works in the public domain, the U RAA has altered the ordinary

copyright sequence.

ii. Public Domain

The significance of the copyright sequence, combined with the principle

that no individual may copyright a w ork in the public domain, is that ordinarily

works in the public domain stay there. See Country Kids ‘N City Slicks, Inc. v.

Sheen, 77 F.3d 1280, 1287 (10th Cir. 1996) (holding that a doll design could not

be copyrighted because it was characterized by “typical paper doll features found

in the public domain”); Lipton v. Nature Co., 71 F.3d 464, 470 (2d Cir. 1995)

(“[F]acts are considered to be in the public domain and therefore not protectable

3
An author must still include notice in order to defend against “innocent
infringer[s].” G ORMAN , supra, at 91.

21
under copyright law . . . .”); Norm a Ribbon & Trim ming, Inc. v. Little, 51 F.3d 45,

48 (5th Cir. 1995) (holding that certain flowers could not be copyrighted “because

these same flowers already existed in the public domain”); United States v.

Hamilton, 583 F.2d 448, 450 (9th Cir. 1987) (noting that “a map which represents

a new combination of information already in the public domain lacks any element

worthy of copyright protection”); M .M . Bus. Forms Corp. v. Uarco, Inc., 472 F.2d

1137, 1140 (6th Cir. 1973) (“Elementary legal words and phrases are in the public

domain and no citizen may gain monopoly thereover to the exclusion of their use

by other citizens.”); Amsterdam v. Triangle Publ’ns, Inc., 189 F.2d 104, 106 (3d

Cir. 1951) (“The location of county lines, township lines and municipal lines is

information within the public domain, and is not copyrightable.”); Christianson v.

West Pub. Co., 149 F.2d 202, 203 (9th Cir. 1945) (“The outline map of the United

States with state boundaries is in the public domain and is not copyrightable.”)

(internal quotation marks omitted); M eade v. United States, 27 Fed. Cl. 367, 372

(1992) (holding that “defendant’s LOVE stamp” could not be copyrighted because

it “exist[ed] in the public domain”); see also Toro Co. v. R&R Prods. Co., 787

F.2d 1208, 1213 (8th Cir. 1908) (“If the disputed work is similar to a pre-existing

protected work or one in the public domain, the second work must contain some

variation recognizable as that of the second author.”).

In Sheldon v. M etro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp., 81 F.2d 49, 54 (2d Cir. 1936),

22
aff’d, 309 U.S. 390, 392 (1940), Judge Learned Hand, a luminary in the field of

copyright law, illustrated this principle when he stated that “if by some magic a

man who had never known it were to compose anew Keats’s Ode on a Grecian

Urn, he would be an ‘author,’ and, if he copyrighted it, others might not copy that

poem, though they might of course copy Keats.” Sheldon, 81 F.2d at 54. As

Judge Hand observed, Keats’s poems remained in the public domain – free for

anyone to copy – even if someone copyrighted the identical language. Section

514 contravenes this principle.

iii. The history of American copyright law reveals no tradition of
copyrighting works in the public domain

As we stated above, the fact that the Eldred Court used the w ord

“traditional” to modify “contours” suggests that the history of American copyright

law should inform our inquiry. Eldred, 537 U.S. at 221. Accordingly, we look for

evidence indicating that the Framers believed removal of works from the public

domain w as consistent with the copyright scheme they designed. Congress’s past

practices are also pertinent to determining whether extricating works from the

public domain is a tradition of our country’s copyright law.

a. T he Fram ers’ V iew s

Unfortunately, constitutional historians know little about the Framers’

views regarding copyright and the public domain. In part, this is because, when

the states ratified the Constitution, “the Common Law of the United States . . . was

23
in a highly uncertain state on the subject of copyrights.” 1 W illiam W . Crosskey,

P OLITICS AND THE C ONSTITUTION IN THE H ISTORY OF THE U NITED S TATES 477

(1953). Uncertainty also stems from the fact that none of the usual, reliable

sources – The Federalist Papers, M adison’s notes from the Constitutional

Convention, or accounts of the First Congress’s deliberations – take up the subject

in any detail.

Passed in 1790, the first Copyright Act granted fourteen years of protection

for books, maps, and charts already printed in the United States. See Eldred, 537

U.S. at 194 (discussing the 1790 A ct). The parties debate whether the First

Congress extended copyright protection to works already in the public domain.

W hile the Eldred Court recognized that “the First Congress clearly did confer

copyright protection on works that had already been created,” id. at 196 n.3,

plaintiffs argue convincingly that most, if not all, of these works were covered by

a state common-law copyright and therefore not in the public domain. In

response, the government observes that not all states enacted copyright statutes

during the period of the Articles of Confederation. See Feltner v. Columbia

Pictures Television, Inc., 523 U .S. 340, 350 (1998) (citing Copyright Enactments:

Laws Passed in the United States Since 1783 Relating to Copyright 21 (Copyright

Office ed., Bulletin No. 3, rev. 1963)); Thomas B. Nachbar, Intellectual Property

and Constitutional N orm s, 104 Colum. L. Rev. 272, 338 n.284 (2004) (“Of the

24
general copyright laws passed by the States during the years of the Articles of

Confederation, two of them (M aryland and Pennsylvania) never even came into

effect; they included reciprocity clauses that were never fulfilled because one

State, Delaware, never enacted a general copyright law . . . .”).

Although the history of the 1790 Act could be highly informative of the

Framers’ views, the answer to the question of whether Congress thought it was

removing works from the public domain is probably not just unclear but also

unknowable. Edward C. W alterscheid, Understanding the Copyright Act of 1790:

the Issue of Common Law Copyright in America and the M odern Interpretation of

the Copyright Power, 53 J. Copyright Soc’y U.S.A. 313, 332 (2006) (“There is

very little contemporaneous legislative history dealing with the 1790 Act.”); see

also id. at 340 (“[I]t is impossible to demonstrate w ith any reasonable certainty

from the language of the 1790 Copyright Act and the circumstances surrounding

its enactment that Congress believed that it was creating a property right in

authors rather than affirming and protecting an existing common-law right, albeit

for a limited time.”).

Given the scarcity of historical evidence, we cannot conclude that the

Framers viewed removal of works from the public domain as consistent with the

copyright scheme they created. Nor do we discern at the dawn of the Republic any

burgeoning tradition of removing works from the public domain.

25
 b. C ongressional Practice Since the F irst C ongress

At oral argument, the government conceded that apart from the 1790 Act’s

purported grant of copyright protection to works in the public domain, there have

been few instances of such grants since. It does, however, point to a series of

private bills granting copyrights to individuals. But “[t]hese private bills do not

support the [government’s] historical gloss, but rather significantly undermine the

historical claim.” Eldred, 537 U.S. at 234 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Far from

providing evidence that copyrighting works in the public domain is within the

traditional contours of copyright protection, the fact that individuals were forced

to resort to the uncommon tactic of petitioning Congress demonstrates that this

practice w as outside the normal practice.

In addition, the government argues that the wartime acts of Dec 18, 1919,

Pub. L. No. 66-102, 41 Stat. 368, and the Emergency Copyright Act of 1941, Pub.

L. No. 77-258, 55 Stat. 732, removed w orks from the public domain by granting

the President authority to give foreign authors additional time to comply with

copyright requirements. However, a review of the historical record reveals that

these emergency wartime bills, passed in response to exigent circumstances,

merely altered the means by which authors could comply with the procedural rules

for copyright; these bills were not explicit attempts to remove w orks from the

public domain. The Emergency Copyright Act of 1941, for example, recognized

26
that authors “may have been tem porarily unable to comply with [copyright

formalities] because of the disruption or suspension of facilities essential for such

compliance.” 55 Stat. 732 (emphasis supplied).

The statutory context of these acts reveals that they were, at most, a brief

and limited departure from a practice of guarding the public domain. In previous

actions granting copyrights to foreign authors, Congress emphasized that it was

not attempting to interfere with the rights of Americans who had relied on the

foreign works. For example, the 1919 Act stated that “nothing herein contained

shall be construed to deprive any person of any right which he may have acquired

by the republication of such foreign work in the United States prior to approval of

this Act.” 41 Stat. 369. One of the Acts to which the 1919 Act referred was the

1909 Copyright Act. That Act made clear that “no copyright shall subsist in the

original text of any work which is in the public domain.” Copyright Act, Pub. L.

No. 60-349, 35 Stat. 1075, 1077 (1909) (emphasis supplied).

This context notwithstanding, the wartime acts may have had the effect of

removing a very small number of w orks from the public domain. Nevertheless,

this possibility is insufficient to establish a traditional contour of copyright law.

Indeed, world war is (hopefully) not traditional. The fact that the legislation was

passed in response to the exigencies of a world war suggests that Congress felt

compelled to depart from its normal practice of preserving the public domain.

27
M oreover, the mere passage of these discrete acts does not indicate that such

removal was consistent with any provision of the Constitution, including the First

Amendment. See 3 N IMMER ON C OPYRIGHT § 9A.07[A], 9A-79 to -80 (2007)

(stating that “although three [wartime] enactments granted very limited

resurrection, . . . the practice under those circumscribed enactments w as simply to

sweep the constitutional issues under the rug”).

Based on the foregoing, we see no tradition of removing works from the

public domain. Indeed, if anything, our examination of the history of American

copyright law reveals that removal was the exception rather than the rule. Thus, §

514 deviates from the time-honored tradition of allowing works in the public

domain to stay there.

iv. Conclusion

In sum, by extending a limited monopoly to expressions historically beyond

the pale of such privileges, the URAA transformed the ordinary process of

copyright protection and contravened a bedrock principle of copyright law that

works in the public domain remain in the public domain. Therefore, under both

the functional and historical components of our inquiry, § 514 has altered the

traditional contours of copyright protection.

c. The URAA’s removal of works from the public domain
implicates plaintiffs’ First Amendment interest

W e now explain how this alteration of traditional contours affects the First

28
Amendment interests of these plaintiffs. To begin, as discussed above, copyright

law bears out the rather obvious – but significant – point that works in the public

domain belong to the public. See Dastar, 539 U.S. at 33-34 (2003) (“[O]nce the . .

. copyright monopoly has expired, the public may use the . . . work at will and

without attribution.”); Am. Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister, 207 U.S. 284, 299-300

(1907) (observing that widespread publication of a work without copyright

protection “render[s] such work common property”) (emphasis supplied). As

Judge Hand made clear in National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett

Publications, Inc., 171 F.2d 594, 603 (2d Cir. 1951), a case that involved

copyrights to “Superman” and “Captain M arvel” comic strips, “once [the strips

fell] into the public domain . . . anyone might copy them.” In other words, each

member of the public – “anyone” – has a non-exclusive right, subject to

constitutionally permissible legislation, to use material in the public domain. The

implication of this principle is that the plaintiffs here possessed a non-exclusive

right to use the works at issue.

Furthermore, the First Amendment protects plaintiffs’ right to unrestrained

artistic use of these works. The Supreme Court has emphasized that the right to

artistic expression is near the core of the First A mendment. Ward v. Rock Against

Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 790 (1989) (“M usic is one of the oldest forms of human

expression. From Plato’s discourse in the Republic to the totalitarian state in our

29
own times, rulers have known [music’s] capacity to appeal to the intellect and to

the emotions, and have censored musical compositions to serve the needs of the

state. . . . The Constitution prohibits any like attempts in our own legal order.

M usic, as a form of expression and communication, is protected under the First

Amendment.”); Schad v. Borough of M ount Ephraim, 452 U.S. 61, 65 (1981)

(“Entertainment, as well as political and ideological speech, is protected; motion

pictures, programs broadcast by radio and television, and live entertainment, such

as musical and dramatic w orks, fall within the First Amendment guarantee.”);

Kaplan v. California, 413 U .S. 115, 119-120 (1973) (“[P]ictures, films, paintings,

drawings, and engravings . . . have First A mendment protection . . . .”).

Together, the clear import of these principles is that the public in general

and these plaintiffs in particular have a First Amendment interest in using works

in the public domain. For example, at the moment that Dmitri Shostakovich’s

Symphony No. 5 entered the public domain, Plaintiff John Blackburn had a right to

create a derivative work for a high school band to perform at an event

comm emorating 9/11. The principle of copyright law that shields works in the

public domain from copyright ensured M r. Blackburn’s right to create the piece,

and the First A mendment protected his right to perform it.

Section 514 has interfered with M r. Blackburn’s right by making the cost of

performance or creation of new derivative w orks based on Shostakovich’s

30
Symphony No. 5 prohibitive. M oreover, as the example of M r. Blackburn’s

composition suggests, plaintiffs’ First A mendment interests in public domain

works are greater than the interests of the Eldred plaintiffs. The Eldred plaintiffs

did not – nor had they ever – possessed unfettered access to any of the works at

issue there. As the Eldred Court observed, the most the Eldred plaintiffs could

show was a weak interest in “making other people’s speeches.” 537 U.S. 221. By

contrast, the speech at issue here belonged to plaintiffs w hen it entered the public

domain. In reliance on their rights to these works, plaintiffs have already

performed or planned future performances and used these publically available

works to create their ow n artistic productions. 4

By removing works from the public domain, § 514 arguably hampers free

expression and undermines the values the public domain is designed to protect.

See Meade, 27 Fed. Cl. at 372 (“Extending copyright protection to a heart-shaped

picture of earth effectively would grant the copyright holder a monopoly over the

4
Interestingly, during the Eldred oral argument, Justice Souter asked then-
Solicitor General Olsen whether the Copyright Clause combined with the
Necessary and Proper Clause could justify the extension of monopoly privileges
to a “copyright that expired yesterday.” Aplts’ Supp. Auth. dated June 2, 2006,
Transcript of Oral Argument at 44, Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (No. 01-
618). The Solicitor General replied that although such an act was not
inconceivable, the public domain likely presented a “bright line” because once
“[s]omething . . . has already gone into the public domain [] other individuals or
companies or entities may then have acquired an interest in, or rights to be
involved in disseminating [the w ork.]” Id.

31
innumerable w ays of expressing this picture. Allowing this picture to remain in

the public domain for all artists to interpret freely, however, will foster creativity

by ensuring that future mapmakers and artists have an ample store of ideas on

which to build their works.”). W e therefore conclude that once the works at issue

became free for anyone to copy, plaintiffs in this case had vested First Amendment

interests in the expressions, and § 514’s interference with plaintiffs’ rights is

subject to First Amendment scrutiny.

f. Copyright’s built-in free speech safeguards are not adequate to
protect the First Amendment interests at stake

In Eldred, the Court indicated that “copyright’s built-in free speech

safeguards are generally adequate to address [First Amendment concerns].” 537

U.S. at 221 (emphasis supplied). Below, we conclude that the idea/expression

dichotomy and the fair use defense are not designed to combat the threat to free

expression posed by § 514’s removal of works from the public domain.

i. Idea/Expression Dichotomy

The idea/expression dichotomy protects First Amendment interests by

ensuring that “no author may copyright facts or ideas. The copyright is limited to

those aspects of the work – termed ‘expression’ – that display the stamp of the

author’s originality.” Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 547 (citation omitted). The

Supreme Court has observed that the idea/expression dichotomy “strikes a

definitional balance between the First Amendment and the Copyright Act by

32
permitting free communication of facts while still protecting an author’s

expression.” Eldred, 537 U.S. at 219 (quoting Harper, 471 U.S. at 556). See 4

N IMMER ON C OPYRIGHT , supra, § 19E.03[A][2], at 19E-20 to -21 (“In general, the

democratic dialogue – a self-governing people’s participation in the marketplace

of ideas – is adequately served if the public has access to an author’s ideas, and

such loss to the dialogue as results from inaccessibility to an author’s ‘expression’

is counterbalanced by the greater public interest in the copyright system.”).

However, the idea/expression dichotomy’s utility as a definitional

mechanism is limited to determining whether a proposed work is an idea or

whether the work displays sufficient originality to constitute an expression. In the

typical case, the danger to free speech interests is that an individual might gain

monopoly privileges over an idea. Here, by contrast, there is no doubt that the

works at issue are expressions; the threat to free expression lies not in what is

being copyrighted, but in the fact that the works are being removed from the

public domain. The idea/expression dichotomy is simply not designed to

determine whether Congress’s grant of a limited monopoly over an expression in

the public domain runs afoul of the First Amendment.

ii. Fair Use Defense

“The [fair use] defense provides: the fair use of a copyrighted work,

including such use by reproduction in copies . . . , for purposes such as criticism,

33
comment, new s reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use),

scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.” 17 U.S.C. § 107

(internal quotation marks omitted). “[It] allows the public to use not only facts

and ideas contained in a copyrighted work, but also expression itself in certain

circumstances.” Eldred, 537 U.S. at 219. For example, although Ralph Ellison’s

estate may retain the copyright to his classic novel Invisible M an, the fair use

defense permits scholars and teachers to quote extensively from the book and even

reproduce entire sections for the purpose of commenting on (say) the parallels

between the narrator’s literal and figurative vision. Because the purpose of the

fair use defense is to “afford[] considerable ‘latitude for scholarship and

comm ent,’” Eldred, 537 U.S. at 220 (quoting Harper, 471 U.S. at 560), the C ourt

has described it as a “guarantee of breathing space within the confines of

copyright.” Campbell v. Acuff-Rose M usic, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 579 (1994).

In our view, the fair use doctrine is not a sufficient safeguard of plaintiffs’

First Amendment interests. Although the doctrine allows limited use of

copyrighted works, it does not address works that have entered the public domain

and are therefore available for unrestricted use. By withdrawing works from the

public domain, § 514 leaves scholars, artists, and the public w ith less access to

works than they had before the Act. The fact that the fair use doctrine permits

some access to those works may not be an adequate substitute for the unlimited

34
access enjoyed before the URAA was enacted. Thus, instead of providing

additional “breathing space” for free expression, the fair use defense suggests that

§ 514 infringes upon plaintiffs’ First A mendment rights.

In sum, “copyright’s built-in free speech safeguards,” Eldred, 537 U.S. at

221, are designed to govern the distribution of rights between authors and the

public from the moment a work is created and copyrighted until the copyright

expires. This design presumes that some rights are properly reserved for the

author who has never relinquished his right to exploitation. Once a work has

entered the public domain, however, neither the author nor the author’s estate

possesses any more right to the work than any member of the general public.

Because § 514 bestows copyrights upon works in the public domain, these built-in

safeguards are not adequate to protect plaintiffs’ First Amendment interests.

iii. The U RAA does not supplement the traditional First
Amendment safeguards

In concluding that the CTEA did not require First Amendment scrutiny, the

Eldred Court noted that “the CTEA [] supplements the[] traditional safeguards.”

Id. The Court described the additional protections as follows:

First, [the CTEA] allows libraries, archives, and similar institutions to
“reproduce” and “distribute, display, or perform in facsimile or digital
form” copies of certain published works “during the last 20 years of any
term of copyright . . . for purposes of preservation, scholarship, or
research” if the work is not already being exploited commercially and
further copies are unavailable at a reasonable price. 17 U.S.C. § 108(h).
Second, Title II of the CTEA, known as the Fairness in M usic Licensing

35
 Act of 1998, exempts small businesses, restaurants, and like entities
from having to pay performance royalties on music played from licensed
radio, television, and similar facilities.

Id. at 220 (quoting 17 U.S.C. § 108(h)) (some internal citations omitted).

The URAA contains none of the CTEA’s supplemental First Amendment

protections. It neither provides exceptions for “libraries, archives and similar

institutions,” nor exemptions for “small businesses, restaurants and like entities

from having to pay performance royalties.” 17 U.S.C. § 108(h). Rather than

excepting parties, such as plaintiffs, who have relied upon works in the public

domain, the URAA provides only a safe harbor allowing a party to use a restored

work for one year after receiving notice of the restored copyright protection. 17

U.S.C. § 104A(d)(2). W e note, however, that it does permit a party to continue to

use a work if notice is not given. See Luck’s M usic, 467 F.3d at 1265 (discussing

§ 104A(d)(2)). W hen compared to the CTEA, this is hardly a “guarantee of

breathing space.” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579.

IV . IN ST R U C TIO N S FO R R E M A N D

In conducting its First Amendment analysis on remand, the district court

should assess whether § 514 is content-based or content-neutral. Content-based

restrictions on speech are those which “suppress, disadvantage, or impose

differential burdens upon speech because of its content.” Grace U nited M ethodist

Church v. City of Cheyenne, 451 F.3d 643, 657 (10th Cir. 2006) (internal citations

36
and quotations omitted). These restrictions “are subject to the most exacting

scrutiny.” Id. If § 514 is a content-based restriction, then the district court will

need to consider whether the government’s interest in promulgating the legislation

is truly “compelling” and whether the government might achieve the same ends

through alternative means that have less of an effect on protected expression. 5

United States v. Playboy Entm’t Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 813 (2000). By

contrast, “[a] regulation that serves purposes unrelated to the content of

expression is deemed neutral, even if it has an incidental effect on some speakers

or messages but not others.” Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. at 791. A content-

5
Although not mentioned by the parties, Congress’s treaty, comm erce, and
takings powers may provide Congress with the authority to enact § 514. See 3
N IMMER ON C OPYRIGHT § 9A.07[B], 9A -79 to -80, 90A .07[C], 9A -85. W e also
note that at oral argument, Professor Lessig claimed that the experience of other
countries, such as the United Kingdom, suggests that the United States could
comply with the Berne Convention through less restrictive means. Indeed, the
United Kingdom Copyright Statute, as well as the statutes in Australia, Canada,
India, and New Zealand, define a reliance party as any person who “incurs or has
incurred any expenditure or liability in connection with, for the purpose of or with
a view to the doing of an act which at the time is not or was not an act restricted
by any copyright in the work.” Irwin Karp, Final Report, Berne Article 18 Study
on Retroactive United States Copyright Protection for Berne and Other Works, 20
C OLUM .-VLA J.L. & Arts 157, 178 (W inter 1996) (quoting “The Copyright
(A pplication to Other Countries) O rder in Council 988”; June 13, 1989, Article
7(2), reprinted in Copyright Laws and Treaties of the W orld, UK: Item 7c, at 2
(Unesco Supp. 1989-1990). Under the British, Canadian, Australian, and Indian
systems, “the reliance party is allow ed to continue making those uses of the w ork
it had made, or incurred commitments to make, before its copyright is restored.
But the reliance party can be ‘bought out’ by the owner of the restored copyright.
That is, the reliance party must cease exploiting the work if the owner pays
compensation, in an amount to be determined by negotiation or arbitration.” Id.

37
neutral restriction must be “narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental

interest.” Id. (quoting Clark v. Cmty. for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288,

293 (1984)).

V . C O N C L U SIO N

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of the

CTEA claim as foreclosed by Eldred. W e also affirm the district court’s holding

that § 514 of the URAA does not exceed the limitations inherent in the Copyright

Clause. Nevertheless, since § 514 has altered the traditional contours of copyright

protection in a manner that implicates plaintiffs’ right to free expression, it must

be subject to First Amendment review. W e therefore REM AND for proceedings

consistent w ith this opinion.

38