In the United States, the Act newly granted copyright status to foreign works previously in the public domain.

[4] After the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act in Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003), the United States District Court for the District of Colorado dismissed the plaintiffs' challenge to that act in 2004 (Golan v.

[5] The remaining constitutional challenge to the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreements Act was dismissed the following year (Golan v.

[8] However, the Appeals Court did find "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"[9] and concluded "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.

In a holding published on April 3, 2009, Judge Babcock reversed his earlier finding that the First Amendment was not applicable to resurrecting foreign copyright claims.

[20] On June 12, 2011, the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP, Petrucci Music Library) announced they would submit an amicus curiae brief in the case; a group of Harvard Law School students, supervised by Professor Charles Nesson, represented IMSLP.

The majority opinion was written by Justice Ginsburg and joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Sotomayor.