Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf
Page Number: 27.0

Cite as:  565 U. S. ____ (2012) 

23 

Opinion of the Court 

progress  of  science).28    Congress  determined  that  exem-
plary adherence to Berne would serve the objectives of the 
Copyright  Clause.    We  have  no  warrant  to  reject  the  ra-
tional judgment Congress made. 

III
 
A 

We  next  explain  why  the  First  Amendment  does  not 
inhibit  the  restoration  authorized  by  §514.    To  do  so,  we 
first  recapitulate  the  relevant  part  of  our  pathmarking
decision  in  Eldred.  The  petitioners  in  Eldred,  like  those 
here,  argued  that  Congress  had  violated  not  only  the
“limited  Times”  prescription  of  the  Copyright  Clause.  In 
independently,  the  Eldred  petitioners
addition,  and 
charged,  Congress  had  offended  the  First  Amendment’s
freedom  of  expression  guarantee.    The  CTEA’s  20-year
enlargement  of  a  copyright’s  duration,  we  held  in  Eldred, 
offended neither provision.

Concerning  the  First  Amendment,  we  recognized  that
some  restriction  on  expression  is  the  inherent  and  in-
tended effect of every grant of copyright.  Noting that the 
“Copyright Clause and the First Amendment were adopted 
close  in  time,”  537  U. S.,  at  219,  we  observed  that  the 
Framers  regarded  copyright  protection  not  simply  as  a 
limit  on  the  manner  in  which  expressive  works  may  be 
used.  They  also  saw  copyright  as  an  “engine  of  free  ex-
pression[:] By establishing a marketable right to the use of 

—————— 

28 The  dissent  suggests  that  the  “utilitarian  view  of  copyrigh[t]”  em-
braced  by  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  our  case  law  sets  us  apart  from
continental  Europe  and  inhibits  us  from  harmonizing  our  copyright
laws with those of countries in the civil-law tradition.  See post, at 5–6, 
22.  For persuasive refutation of that suggestion, see Austin, Does the
Copyright Clause Mandate Isolationism? 26 Colum. J. L. & Arts 17, 59
(2002)  (cautioning  against  “an  isolationist  reading  of  the  Copyright 
Clause  that  is  in  tension  with  . . .  America’s  international  copyright
relations over the last hundred or so years”).