Held: In placing existing and future copyrights in parity in the CTEA, Congress acted within its authority and did not transgress constitutional limitations. |
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
No. 01—618. Argued October 9, 2002–Decided January 15,
2003
The Copyright and Patent Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I, §8,
cl. 8, provides as to copyrights: “Congress shall have Power … [t]o
promote the Progress of Science … by securing [to Authors] for
limited Times … the exclusive Right to their … Writings.” In
the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), Congress enlarged the
duration of copyrights by 20 years: Under the 1976 Copyright Act (1976
Act), copyright protection generally lasted from a work’s creation
until 50 years after the author’s death; under the CTEA, most
copyrights now run from creation until 70 years after the author’s
death, 17 U.S.C. § 302(a). As in the case of prior copyright extensions,
principally in 1831, 1909, and 1976, Congress provided for application
of the enlarged terms to existing and future copyrights alike.
Petitioners, whose products or
services build on copyrighted works that have gone into the public domain, brought
this suit seeking a determination that the CTEA fails constitutional review under
both the Copyright Clause’s “limited Times” prescription and
the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee. Petitioners do not challenge
the CTEA’s “life-plus-70-years” time span itself. They maintain
that Congress went awry not with respect to newly created works, but in enlarging
the term for published works with existing copyrights. The “limited Tim[e]” in
effect when a copyright is secured, petitioners urge, becomes the constitutional
boundary, a clear line beyond the power of Congress to extend. As to the First
Amendment, petitioners contend that the CTEA is a content-neutral regulation
of speech that fails inspection under the heightened judicial scrutiny appropriate
for such regulations. The District Court entered judgment on the pleadings for
the Attorney General (respondent here), holding that the CTEA does not violate
the Copyright Clause’s “limited Times” restriction because
the CTEA’s terms, though longer than the 1976 Act’s terms, are still
limited, not perpetual, and therefore fit within Congress’ discretion.
The court also held that there are no First Amendment rights to use the copyrighted
works of others. The District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. In that court’s
unanimous view, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471
U.S. 539, foreclosed petitioners’ First Amendment challenge to the CTEA.
The appeals court reasoned that copyright does not impermissibly restrict free
speech, for it grants the author an exclusive right only to the specific form
of expression; it does not shield any idea or fact contained in the copyrighted
work, and it allows for “fair use” even of the expression itself.
A majority of the court also rejected petitioners’ Copyright Clause claim.
The court ruled that Circuit precedent precluded petitioners’ plea for
interpretation of the “limited Times” prescription with a view to
the Clause’s preambular statement of purpose: “To promote the Progress
of Science.” The court found nothing in the constitutional text or history
to suggest that a term of years for a copyright is not a “limited Time” if
it may later be extended for another “limited Time.” Recounting that
the First Congress made the 1790 Copyright Act applicable to existing copyrights
arising under state copyright laws, the court held that that construction by
contemporaries of the Constitution’s formation merited almost conclusive
weight under Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53, 57. As early
as McClurg v. Kingsland, 1 How. 202, the Court of Appeals recognized, this Court
made it plain that the Copyright Clause permits Congress to amplify an existing
patent’s terms. The court added that this Court has been similarly deferential
to Congress’ judgment regarding copyright. E.g., Sony Corp. of America
v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417. Concerning petitioners’ assertion
that Congress could evade the limitation on its authority by stringing together
an unlimited number of “limited Times,” the court stated that such
legislative misbehavior clearly was not before it. Rather, the court emphasized,
the CTEA matched the baseline term for United States copyrights with the European
Union term in order to meet contemporary circumstances.
Held: In placing existing and future copyrights in parity in the CTEA, Congress
acted within its authority and did not transgress constitutional limitations.
Pp. 7—31.
1. The CTEA’s extension of existing copyrights does not exceed Congress’ power
under the Copyright Clause. Pp. 7—28.
(a) Guided by text, history,
and precedent, this Court cannot agree with petitioners that extending the duration
of existing copyrights is categorically beyond Congress’ Copyright Clause
authority. Although conceding that the CTEA’s baseline term of life plus
70 years qualifies as a “limited Tim[e]” as applied to future copyrights,
petitioners contend that existing copyrights extended to endure for that same
term are not “limited.” In petitioners’ view, a time prescription,
once set, becomes forever “fixed” or “inalterable.” The
word “limited,” however, does not convey a meaning so constricted.
At the time of the Framing, “limited” meant what it means today:
confined within certain bounds, restrained, or circumscribed. Thus understood,
a time span appropriately “limited” as applied to future copyrights
does not automatically cease to be “limited” when applied to existing
copyrights. To comprehend the scope of Congress’ Copyright Clause power, “a
page of history is worth a volume of logic.” New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349. History reveals an unbroken congressional practice of granting
to authors of works with existing copyrights the benefit of term extensions so
that all under copyright protection will be governed evenhandedly under the same
regime. Moreover, because the Clause empowering Congress to confer copyrights
also authorizes patents, the Court’s inquiry is significantly informed
by the fact that early Congresses extended the duration of numerous individual
patents as well as copyrights. Lower courts saw no “limited Times” impediment
to such extensions. Further, although this Court never before has had occasion
to decide whether extending existing copyrights complies with the “limited
Times” prescription, the Court has found no constitutional barrier to the
legislative expansion of existing patents. See, e.g., McClurg, 1 How., at 206.
Congress’ consistent historical practice reflects a judgment that an author
who sold his work a week before should not be placed in a worse situation than
the author who sold his work the day after enactment of a copyright extension.
The CTEA follows this historical practice by keeping the 1976 Act’s duration
provisions largely in place and simply adding 20 years to each of them.
The CTEA is a rational exercise of the
legislative authority conferred by the Copyright Clause. On this
point, the Court defers substantially
to Congress. Sony, 464 U.S., at 429. The CTEA reflects judgments of a
kind Congress typically makes, judgments the Court cannot dismiss
as outside the Legislature’s
domain. A key factor in the CTEA’s passage was a 1993 European Union (EU)
directive instructing EU members to establish a baseline copyright term of life
plus 70 years and to deny this longer term to the works of any non-EU country
whose laws did not secure the same extended term. By extending the baseline United
States copyright term, Congress sought to ensure that American authors would
receive the same copyright protection in Europe as their European counterparts.
The CTEA may also provide greater incentive for American and other authors to
create and disseminate their work in the United States. Additionally, Congress
passed the CTEA in light of demographic, economic, and technological changes,
and rationally credited projections that longer terms would encourage copyright
holders to invest in the restoration and public distribution of their works.
Pp. 7—17.
(b) Petitioners’ Copyright Clause arguments,
which rely on several novel readings of the Clause, are unpersuasive. Pp. 17—28.
(1) Nothing before this
Court warrants construction of the CTEA’s 20-year term extension as a congressional
attempt to evade or override the “limited Times” constraint. Critically,
petitioners fail to show how the CTEA crosses a constitutionally significant
threshold with respect to “limited Times” that the 1831, 1909, and
1976 Acts did not. Those earlier Acts did not create perpetual copyrights, and
neither does the CTEA. Pp. 18—19.
(2) Petitioners’ dominant
series of arguments, premised on the proposition that Congress may not extend
an existing copyright absent new consideration from the author, are unavailing.
The first such contention, that the CTEA’s extension of existing copyrights
overlooks the requirement of “originality,” incorrectly relies on
Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340, 345, 359.
That case did not touch on the duration of copyright protection. Rather, it addressed
only the core question of copyrightability. Explaining the originality requirement,
Feist trained on the Copyright Clause words “Authors” and “Writings,” id.,
at 346—347, and did not construe the “limited Times” prescription,
as to which the originality requirement has no bearing. Also unavailing is petitioners’ second
argument, that the CTEA’s extension of existing copyrights fails to “promote
the Progress of Science” because it does not stimulate the creation of
new works, but merely adds value to works already created. The justifications
that motivated Congress to enact the CTEA, set forth supra, provide a rational
basis for concluding that the CTEA “promote[s] the Progress of Science.” Moreover,
Congress’ unbroken practice since the founding generation of applying new
definitions or adjustments of the copyright term to both future works and existing
works overwhelms petitioners’ argument. Also rejected is petitioners’ third
contention, that the CTEA’s extension of existing copyrights without demanding
additional consideration ignores copyright’s quid pro quo, whereby Congress
grants the author of an original work an “exclusive Right” for a “limited
Tim[e]” in exchange for a dedication to the public thereafter. Given Congress’ consistent
placement of existing copyright holders in parity with future holders, the author
of a work created in the last 170 years would reasonably comprehend, as the protection
offered her, a copyright not only for the time in place when protection is gained,
but also for any renewal or extension legislated during that time. Sears, Roebuck & Co.
v. Stiffel Co., 376 U.S. 25, 229, and Bonito Boats, Inc. v. Thunder Craft Boats,
Inc., 489 U.S. 141, 146, both of which involved the federal patent regime, are
not to the contrary, since neither concerned the extension of a patent’s
duration nor suggested that such an extension might be constitutionally infirm.
Furthermore, given crucial distinctions between patents and copyrights, one cannot
extract from language in the Court’s patent decisions–language not
trained on a grant’s duration–genuine support for petitioners’ quid
pro quo argument. Patents and copyrights do not entail the same exchange, since
immediate disclosure is not the objective of, but is exacted from, the patentee,
whereas disclosure is the desired objective of the author seeking copyright protection.
Moreover, while copyright gives the holder no monopoly on any knowledge, fact,
or idea, the grant of a patent prevents full use by others of the inventor’s
knowledge. Pp. 20—27.
(3) The “congruence
and proportionality” standard of review described in cases evaluating exercises
of Congress’ power under §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment has never
been applied outside the §5 context. It does not hold sway for judicial
review of legislation enacted, as copyright laws are, pursuant to Article I authorization.
Section 5 authorizes Congress to “enforce” commands contained in
and incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment. The Copyright Clause, in contrast,
empowers Congress to define the scope of the substantive right. See Sony, 464
U.S., at 429. Judicial deference to such congressional definition is “but
a corollary to the grant to Congress of any Article I power.” Graham v.
John Deere Co. of Kansas City, 383 U.S. 1, 6. It would be no more appropriate
for this Court to subject the CTEA to “congruence and proportionality” review
than it would be to hold the Act unconstitutional per se. Pp. 27—28.
2. The CTEA’s extension of existing and future
copyrights does not violate the First Amendment. That Amendment and the Copyright
Clause were adopted close in time. This proximity indicates the Framers’ view
that copyright’s limited monopolies are compatible with free speech principles.
In addition, copyright law contains built-in First Amendment accommodations.
See Harper & Row, 471 U.S., at 560. First, 17 U.S.C. § 102(b), which
makes only expression, not ideas, eligible for copyright protection, strikes
a definitional balance between the First Amendment and copyright law by permitting
free communication of facts while still protecting an author’s expression.
Harper & Row, 471 U.S., at 556. Second, the “fair use” defense
codified at §107 allows the public to use not only facts and ideas contained
in a copyrighted work, but also expression itself for limited purposes. “Fair
use” thereby affords considerable latitude for scholarship and comment,
id., at 560, and even for parody, see Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510
U.S. 569. The CTEA itself supplements these traditional First Amendment safeguards
in two prescriptions: The first allows libraries and similar institutions
to reproduce and distribute copies of certain published works for scholarly purposes
during the last 20 years of any copyright term, if the work is not already being
exploited commercially and further copies are unavailable at a reasonable price, §108(h);
the second exempts small businesses from having to pay performance royalties
on music played from licensed radio, television, and similar facilities, §110(5)(B).
Finally, petitioners’ reliance on Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC,
512 U.S. 622, 641, is misplaced. Turner Broadcasting invalidated a statute requiring
cable television operators to carry and transmit broadcast stations through their
proprietary cable systems. The CTEA, in contrast, does not oblige anyone to reproduce
another’s speech against the carrier’s will. Instead, it protects
authors’ original expression from unrestricted exploitation. The 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. When, as in this case, Congress has not altered the
traditional contours of copyright protection, further First Amendment scrutiny
is unnecessary. See, e.g., Harper & Row, 471 U.S., at 560. Pp. 28—31.
239 F.3d 372, affirmed.
Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., and Breyer, J., filed dissenting opinions.
