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This case concerns the authority the Constitution assigns to Congress to prescribe the duration of copyrights. The Copyright and Patent Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 8, cl. 8, provides as to copyrights: “Congress shall have Power... to promote the Progress of Science... by securing [to Authors] for limited Times... the exclusive Right to their... Writings.” In 1998, in the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) here under inspection, Congress enlarged the duration of copyrights by 20 years. As in the case of prior extensions, principally in 1831, 1909, and 1976, Congress provided for application of the enlarged terms 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 seek 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. Under the 1976 Copyright Act, copyright protection generally lasted from the 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. Petitioners do not challenge the “life-plus-70-years”timespan itself, but in enlarging the term for published works with existing copyrights. The “limited Time” 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.

In accord with the District Court and the Court of Appeals, we reject petitioners’ challenges to the CTEA. In that 1998 legislation, as in all previous copyright term extensions, Congress placed existing and future copyrights in parity. In prescribing that alignment, we hold, Congress acted within its authority and did not transgress constitutional limitations.

We evaluate petitioners’ challenge to the constitutionality of the CTEA against the backdrop of Congress’ previous exercises of its authority under the Copyright Clause. The Nation’s first copyright statute, enacted in 1790, provided a federal copyright term of 14 years from the date of publication, renewable for an additional 14 years if the author survived the first term. The 1790 Act’s renewable 14-year term applied to existing works (i.e., works already published and works created but not yet published) and future works alike. Congress expanded the federal copyright term to 42 years in 1831 (28 years from publication, renewable for an additional 14 years), and to 56 years in 1909 (28 years from publication, renewable for an additional 28 years). Both times, Congress applied the new copyright term to existing and future works; to qualify for the 1831 extension, an existing work had to be in its initial copyright term at the time the Act became effective.

In 1976, Congress altered the method for computing federal copyright terms. 1976 Act §§ 302-304. For works created by identified natural persons, the 1976 Act provided that federal copyright protection would run from the work’s creation, not-as in the 1790, 1831, and 1909 Acts-its publication; protection would last until 50 years after the author’s death. § 302(a). In these respects, the 1976 Act aligned United States copyright terms with the then-dominant international standard adopted under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. For anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire, the 1976 Act provided a term of 75 years from publication or 100 years from creation, whichever expired first. § 302(c).

These new copyright terms, the 1976 Act instructed, governed all works not published by its effective date of January 1, 1978, regardless of when the works were created. §§ 302-303. For published works with existing copyrights as of that date, the 1976 Act granted a copyright term of 75 years from the date of publication, §§ 304(a) and (b), a 19-year increase over the 56-year term applicable under the 1909 Act.

The measure at issue here, the CTEA, installed the fourth major duration extension of federal copyrights. Retaining the general structure of the 1976 Act, the CTEA enlarges the terms of all existing and future copyrights by 20 years. For works created by identified natural persons, the term now lasts from creation until 70 years after the author’s death. This standard harmonizes the baseline United States copyright term with the term adopted by the European Union in 1993. For anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire, the term is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first.

Paralleling the 1976 Act, the CTEA applies these new terms to all works not published by January 1, 1978. For works published before 1978 with existing copyrights as of the CTEA’s effective date, the CTEA extends the term to 95 years from publication. Thus, in common with the 1831, 1909, and 1976 Acts, the CTEA’s new terms apply to both future and existing copyrights.

Petitioners’ suit challenges the CTEA’s constitutionality under both the Copyright Clause and the First Amendment.

We granted certiorari to address two questions: whether the CTEA’s extension of existing copyrights exceeds Congress’ power under the Copyright Clause; and whether the CTEA’s extension of existing and future copyrights violates the First Amendment. We now answer those two questions in the negative and affirm.

We address first the determination of the courts below that Congress has authority under the Copyright Clause to extend the terms of existing copyrights. Text, history, and precedent, we conclude, confirm that the Copyright Clause empowers Congress to prescribe “limited Times” for copyright protection and to secure the same level and duration of protection for all copyright holders, present and future.

The CTEA’s baseline term of life plus 70 years, petitioners concede, qualifies as a “limited Time” as applied to future copyrights. Petitioners contend, however, that existing copyrights extended to endure for that same term are not “limited.” Petitioners’ argument essentially reads into the text of the Copyright Clause the command that 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, that word meant what it means today: “confined within certain bounds,” “restrained,” or“circumscribed.” Thus understood, a timespan appropriately “limited” as applied to future copyrights does not automatically cease to infra, at 783, there is no cause to suspect that a purpose to evade the “limited Times” prescription prompted Congress to adopt the CTEA.

To comprehend the scope of Congress’ power under the Copyright Clause,“a page of history is worth a volume of logic.”. 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. As earlier recounted, the First Congress accorded the protections of the Nation’s first federal copyright statute to existing and future works alike. 1790 Act § 1. Since then, Congress has regularly applied duration extensions to both existing and future copyrights.

Justice STEVENS stresses the rejection of a proposed amendment to the Statute of Anne that would have extended the term of existing copyrights, and reports that opponents of the extension feared it would perpetuate the monopoly position enjoyed by English booksellers. But the English Parliament confronted a situation that never existed in the United States. Through the late 17th century, a government-sanctioned printing monopoly was held by the Stationers’ Company, “the ancient London guild of printers and booksellers.” Although that legal monopoly ended in 1695, concerns about monopolistic practices remained, and the 18th-century English Parliament was resistant to any enhancement of booksellers’ and publishers’entrenched position. In this country, in contrast, competition among publishers, printers, and booksellers was “intense” at the time of the founding, and “there was not even a rough analog to the Stationers’ Company on the horizon.” The Framers guarded against the future accumulation of monopoly power in booksellers and publishers by authorizing Congress to vest copyrights only in“Authors.” Justice STEVENS does not even attempt to explain how Parliament’s response to England’s experience with a publishing monopoly may be construed to impose a constitutional limitation on Congress’ power to extend copyrights granted to “Authors.”

Because the Clause empowering Congress to confer copyrights also authorizes patents, congressional practice with respect to patents informs our inquiry. We count it significant that early Congresses extended the duration of numerous individual patents as well as copyrights.

Further, although prior to the instant case this Court did not have occasion to decide whether extending the duration of existing copyrights complies with the “limited Times” prescription, the Court has found no constitutional barrier to the legislative expansion of existing patents.

Also unavailing is Justice STEVENS’ appeal to language found in a private letter written by James Madison. Respondent points to a better“demonstration”, of Madison’s and other Framers’ understanding of the scope of Congress’ power to extend patents: “Then-President Thomas Jefferson—the first administrator of the patent system, and perhaps the Founder with the narrowest view of the copyright and patent powers—signed the 1808 and 1809 patent term extensions into law;... James Madison, who drafted the Constitution’s ‘limited Times’ language, issued the extended patents under those laws as Secretary of State; and... Madison as President signed another patent term extension in 1815.”

Congress’ consistent historical practice of applying newly enacted copyright terms to future and existing copyrights reflects a judgment stated concisely by Representative Huntington at the time of the 1831 Act: “Justice, policy, and equity alike forb [id]” that an “author who had sold his [work] a week ago, be placed in a worse situation than the author who should sell his work the day after the passing of the act.” (“Since 1790, it has indeed been Congress’s policy that the author of yesterday’s work should not get a lesser reward than the author of tomorrow’s work just because Congress passed a statute lengthening the term today.”). The CTEA follows this historical practice by keeping the duration provisions of the 1976 Act largely in place and simply adding 20 years to each of them. Guided by text, history, and precedent, we cannot agree with petitioners’ submission that extending the duration of existing copyrights is categorically beyond Congress’ authority under the Copyright Clause.

Satisfied that the CTEA complies with the “limited Times” prescription, we turn now to whether it is a rational exercise of the legislative authority conferred by the Copyright Clause. On that point, we defer substantially to Congress. “It 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.”

The CTEA reflects judgments of a kind Congress typically makes, judgments we cannot dismiss as outside the Legislature’s domain. As respondent describes, a key factor in the CTEA’s passage was a 1993 European Union (EU) directive instructing EU members to establish a copyright term of life plus 70 years. Consistent with the Berne Convention, the EU directed its members 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 to life plus 70 years, 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.

In addition to international concerns, 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.

Congress also heard testimony from Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters and others regarding the economic incentives created by the CTEA. According to the Register, extending the copyright for existing works “could... provide additional income that would finance the production and publication of new works.” “Authors would not be able to continue to create,” the Register explained, “unless they earned income on their finished works. The public benefits not only from an author’s original work but also from his or her further creations. Although this truism may be illustrated in many ways, one of the best examples is Noah Webster, who supported his entire family from the earnings on his speller and grammar during the twenty years he took to complete his dictionary.”

In sum, we find that the CTEA is a rational enactment; we are not at liberty to second-guess congressional determinations and policy judgments of this order, however debatable or arguably unwise they may be. Accordingly, we 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.

Petitioners’ Copyright Clause arguments rely on several novel readings of the Clause. We next address these arguments and explain why we find them unpersuasive.

Petitioners contend that even if the CTEA’s 20-year term extension is literally a “limited Time,” permitting Congress to extend existing copyrights allows it to evade the “limited Times” constraint by creating effectively perpetual copyrights through repeated extensions. We disagree.

As the Court of Appeals observed, a regime of perpetual copyrights“clearly is not the situation before us.” 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, we again emphasize, 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.

Petitioners dominantly advance a series of arguments all premised on the proposition that Congress may not extend an existing copyright absent new consideration from the author. They pursue this main theme under three headings. Petitioners contend that the CTEA’s extension of existing copyrights(1) overlooks the requirement of “originality,” (2) fails to “promote the Progress of Science,” and (3) ignores copyright’s quid pro quo.

Petitioners’ “originality” argument draws on Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.Feist, however, did not touch on the duration of copyright protection. The decision did not construe the “limited Times” for which a work may be protected, and the originality requirement has no bearing on that prescription.

More forcibly, petitioners contend that the CTEA’s extension of existing copyrights does not “promote the Progress of Science” as contemplated by the preambular language of the Copyright Clause. As petitioners point out, we have described the Copyright Clause as “both a grant of power and a limitation”, and have said that “the primary objective of copyright” is “to promote the Progress of Science”. The “constitutional command,” we have recognized, is that Congress, to the extent it enacts copyright laws at all, create a “system” that “promotes the Progress of Science.”

We have also stressed, however, that it is generally for Congress, not the courts, to decide how best to pursue the Copyright Clause’s objectives. The justifications we earlier set out for Congress’ enactment of the CTEA, provide a rational basis for the conclusion that the CTEA “promotes the Progress of Science.”

On the issue of copyright duration, Congress, from the start, has routinely applied new definitions or adjustments of the copyright term to both future works and existing works not yet in the public domain. Such consistent congressional practice is entitled to “very great weight, and when it is remembered that the rights thus established have not been disputed during a period of over two centuries, it is almost conclusive.”

Closely related to petitioners’ preambular argument, or a variant of it, is their assertion that the Copyright Clause “imbeds a quid pro quo.” They contend, in this regard, that Congress may grant to an “Author” an “exclusive Right” for a “limited Time,” but only in exchange for a “Writing.” Congress’power to confer copyright protection, petitioners argue, is thus contingent upon an exchange: The author of an original work receives an “exclusive Right” for a “limited Time” in exchange for a dedication to the public thereafter. Extending an existing copyright without demanding additional consideration, petitioners maintain, bestows an unpaid-for benefit on copyright holders and their heirs, in violation of the quid pro quo requirement.

We can demur to petitioners’ description of the Copyright Clause as a grant of legislative authority empowering Congress “to secure a bargain-this for that.” (“The economic philosophy behind the clause empowering Congress to grant patents and 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 and inventors in ‘Science and useful Arts.’ ”). But the legislative evolution earlier recalled demonstrates what the bargain entails. Given the 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 “this” 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. Congress could rationally seek to “promote... Progress” by including in every copyright statute an express guarantee that authors would receive the benefit of any later legislative extension of the copyright term. Nothing in the Copyright Clause bars Congress from creating the same incentive by adopting the same position as a matter of unbroken practice..

We note, furthermore, that patents and copyrights do not entail the same exchange, and that our references to a quid pro quo typically appear in the patent context. If an invention is already commonly known and used when the patent is sought, “there might be sound reason for presuming, that the legislature did not intend to grant an exclusive right,” given the absence of a“quid pro quo. This is understandable, given that immediate disclosure is not the objective of, but is exacted from, the patentee. It is the price paid for the exclusivity secured. For the author seeking copyright protection, in contrast, disclosure is the desired objective, not something exacted from the author in exchange for the copyright. Indeed, since the 1976 Act, copyright has run from creation, not publication. Further distinguishing the two kinds of intellectual property, copyright gives the holder no monopoly on any knowledge. A reader of an author’s writing may make full use of any fact or idea she acquires from her reading. The grant of a patent, on the other hand, does prevent full use by others of the inventor’s knowledge. The monopoly granted by a copyright “is not a monopoly of knowledge. The grant of a patent does prevent full use being made of knowledge, but the reader of a book is not by the copyright laws prevented from making full use of any information he may acquire from his reading.” In light of these distinctions, one cannot extract from language in our patent decisions-language not trained on a grant’s duration-genuine support for petitioners’ bold view. Accordingly, we reject the proposition that a quid pro quo requirement stops Congress from expanding copyright’s term in a manner that puts existing and future copyrights in parity.

As an alternative to their various arguments that extending existing copyrights violates the Copyright Clause per se, petitioners urge heightened judicial review of such extensions to ensure that they appropriately pursue the purposes of the Clause. Specifically, petitioners ask us to apply the“congruence and proportionality” standard described in cases evaluating exercises of Congress’ power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But we have never applied that standard 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. Amdt. 14, § 5 “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” (emphasis added). The Copyright Clause, in contrast, empowers Congress to define the scope of the substantive right. It would be no more appropriate for us to subject the CTEA to “congruence and proportionality”review under the Copyright Clause than it would be for us to hold the Act unconstitutional per se.

For the several reasons stated, we find no Copyright Clause impediment to the CTEA’s extension of existing copyrights.

If petitioners’ vision of the Copyright Clause held sway, it would do more than render the CTEA’s duration extensions unconstitutional as to existing works. Indeed, petitioners’ assertion that the provisions of the CTEA are not severable would make the CTEA’s enlarged terms invalid even as to tomorrow’s work. The 1976 Act’s time extensions, which set the pattern that the CTEA followed, would be vulnerable as well.

As we read the Framers’ instruction, the Copyright Clause empowers Congress to determine the intellectual property regimes that, overall, in that body’s judgment, will serve the ends of the Clause. Congress may “implement the stated purpose of the Framers by selecting the policy which in its judgment best effectuates the constitutional aim.” Beneath the facade of their inventive constitutional interpretation, petitioners forcefully urge that Congress pursued very bad policy in prescribing the CTEA’s long terms. The wisdom of Congress’ action, however, is not within our province to second-guess. Satisfied that the legislation before us remains inside the domain the Constitution assigns to the First Branch, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Also, 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, 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.

1. 版权为何要设定固定的保护期限？

2. 美国宪法对于版权保护期限作了什么规定？

3. 从经济学的角度而言，CTEA的规定是否合理？

4. 国会颁布CTEA是否违反了宪法的要求？

5. 从现实角度而言，谁是CTEA最大的受益者？是否所有的作者都能够得到保护？