Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-877_dc8f.pdf
Page Number: 14

Cite as:  589 U. S. ____ (2020) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

must be a congruence and proportionality between the in-
jury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to 
that  end.”  Boerne,  521  U. S.,  at  520.    On  the  one  hand, 
courts are to consider the constitutional problem Congress 
faced—both the nature and the extent of state conduct vio-
lating the Fourteenth Amendment.  That assessment usu-
ally  (though  not  inevitably)  focuses  on  the  legislative  rec-
ord, which shows the evidence Congress had before it of a 
constitutional  wrong.  See  Florida  Prepaid,  527  U. S.,  at 
646.  On the other hand, courts are to examine the scope of 
the response Congress chose to address that injury.  Here, 
a  critical  question  is  how  far,  and  for  what  reasons,  Con-
gress has gone beyond redressing actual constitutional vio-
lations.  Hard  problems  often  require  forceful  responses 
and, as noted above, Section 5 allows Congress to “enact[ ] 
reasonably prophylactic legislation” to deter constitutional 
harm.  Kimel,  528  U. S.,  at  88;  Boerne,  521  U. S.,  at  536 
(Congress’s conclusions on that score are “entitled to much
deference”); supra, at 10.  But “[s]trong measures appropri-
ate to address one harm may be an unwarranted response
to another, lesser one.”  Boerne, 521 U. S., at 530.  Always,
what Congress has done must be in keeping with the Four-
teenth Amendment rules it has the power to “enforce.”

All  this  raises  the  question:  When  does  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  care  about  copyright  infringement?    Some-
times, no doubt.  Copyrights are a form of property.  See Fox 
Film  Corp.  v.  Doyal,  286  U. S.  123,  128  (1932).    And  the 
Fourteenth Amendment bars the States from “depriv[ing]”
a person of property “without due process of law.”  But even 
if sometimes, by no means always.  Under our precedent, a
merely  negligent  act  does  not  “deprive”  a  person  of  prop-
erty.  See Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 328 (1986).  So 
an infringement must be intentional, or at least reckless, to
come within the reach of the Due Process Clause.  See id., 
at  334,  n. 3  (reserving  whether  reckless  conduct  suffices). 
And more: A State cannot violate that Clause unless it fails