Transcript

CHIEF JUSTICE WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST: The opinion of the court in number 01-618, Eldred against Ashcroft, will be announced by Justice Ginsburg.

JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: This case concerns the authority the Constitution assigns to the Congress to prescribe the duration of copyrights.

The Copyright and Patent Clause of the Constitution provides as to copyrights, "Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science," and that means knowledge, "by securing for limited times to authors, the exclusive rights to their writings."

In the 1998 act here under inspection, the Copyright Term Extension Act, or CTEA, Congress enlarged the duration of copyrights by 20 years. As in the case of prior copyright extensions, in 1831, 1909 and 1976, the CTEA provided that its enlarged terms would apply to existing and future copyrights alike.

Petitioners are individuals and businesses whose products or services build on copyrighted works that have gone into the public domain. They sued the Attorney General seeking a determination that the CTEA fails judicial review under either or both of two Constitutional constraints:

First, the limited times prescription of the Copyright Clause; and second, the free speech guarantee contained in the First Amendment. Under the 1976 copyright act, as originally enacted, copyright protection generally lasted from the works' creation until 50 years after the author's death.

Under the CTEA, most copyrights now run 20 years longer from creation until 70 years after the author's death. Concerning the Copyright Clause, petitioners do not question the CTEA's enlarged time span itself. They do not say life plus 50 years was enough, but life plus 70 years is too much.

Instead, they charge that Congress went awry when it placed current copyright holders in parity with future holders. Petitioners urged that Congress lacks the Constitutional authority to extend the duration of existing copyrights beyond the limited time set when those copyrights issued.

As to the First Amendment, petitioners contend that the CTEA cannot survive inspection under the heightened judicial scrutiny appropriate even for content neutral restrictions on speech.

The district court for the District of Columbia rejected petitioners' complaint and the court of appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed, In accord with those courts, we reject petitioners' challenges to the CTEA.

Text, history and precedent, we conclude, confirm that the Copyright Clause gives Congress wide leeway to prescribe limited times for copyright protection and allows Congress to secure the same level and duration of protection for all copyright holders present and future.

The Copyright Clause speaks of times that are limited, not times that are fixed or inalterable. Congress's unbroken practice since the founding generation has been to grant to authors of works with existing, unexpired copyrights, the benefit of term extensions so that all under copyright protection will be governed even-handedly under the same regime.

This court, it is true, has never before had occasion to decide whether extending the duration of an existing copyright comports with the limited times prescription. But as early as 1843, the court held that the same clause of the Constitution permitted Congress to expand the term of existing patents.

The court's opinion today adheres to the view that dissatisfy the limited times instruction, Congress is not obliged to draw a line between works currently covered by copyrights and works that will be so covered in the future.

As in other cases, Congress's exercise of its Article 1, Section 8 powers, courts owe a large measure of respect to Congress's judgments about how best to carry out the authority the Copyright Clause assigns to it.

Among key reasons for the CTEA, Congress responded to developments abroad. In particular, Congress aligned the baseline U.S. copyright term with the extended baseline copyright term earlier adopted by the European Union for existing and future copyrights.

In addition to international concerns regarding intellectual property, to which the United States is becoming increasingly alert, Congress had in view relevant demographic, economic and technological changes.

Satisfied that Congress acted rationally, we are not at liberty to second guess the wisdom of the CTEA however debatable the need for or the utility of that act may be.

We further conclude that the CTEA does not run a foul of the First Amendment. Free speech in this area is not one-sided. On that point, this court has recognized the framers' intended copyright itself to be an engine of free expression.

The copyright scheme, we have also emphasized, incorporates its own speech protective safeguards. It does so by distinguishing between protected expression, on the one hand, and unprotected facts and ideas on the other and by allowing fair use of copyrighted expression for purposes of criticism, comment, teaching and even parody.

The CTEA supplements those safeguards albeit narrowly by permitting the reproduction, distribution and performance of certain copyrighted work in specific circumstances.

Satisfied that the legislation before us remains inside the domain Congress assigns to the first branch and does not transgress other Constitutional limitations, and having no policy-setting role to play, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer have each filed a dissenting opinion.