Court Opinion

ID: 9425349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:28.190086+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:55.026392
License: Public Domain

*576Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Blackmun join, dissenting.
The argument of the Court, as I understand it, is this: Art. I, § 8, cl. 8, of the Constitution gives Congress the power “[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” The Framers recognized that individual States might have peculiarly local interests that Congress might not consider worthy of attention. Thus, the constitutional provision does not, of its own force, bar States from promoting those local interests. However, as the Court noted in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiff el Co., 376 U. S. 225 (1964), with respect to every particular item within general classes enumerated in the relevant statutes, Congress had balanced the need to promote invention against the desire to preserve free competition, and had concluded that it was in the national interest to preserve competition as to every item that could not be patented. That is, the fact that some item could not be patented demonstrated that, in the judgment of Congress, it was best to let competition in the production of that item go unrestricted. The situation with regard to copyrights is said to be similar. There Congress enumerated certain classes of works for which a copyright may be secured. 17 U. S. C. § 5. Its silence as to other classes does not reflect a considered judgment about the relative importance of competition and promotion of “Science and useful Arts.” Thus, the Court says, the States remain free to protect as they will “writings” not in the enumerated classes, until Congress acts. Since sound recordings fixed prior to February 15, 1972, were not enumerated by Congress as subject to copyrighting,1 the States may protect such recordings.
*577With respect, I cannot accept the final step of this argument. In my view, Congress has demonstrated its desire to exercise the full grant of constitutional power. Title 17 U. S. C. §4, states: “The works for which copyright may be secured under this title shall include all the writings of an author” (emphasis added). The use of the constitutional terms “writings” and “author” rather strongly suggests that Congress intended to follow the constitutional grant. It could exercise the power given it by the Constitution in two ways: either by protecting all writings, or by protecting all writings within designated classes and leaving open to competition all writings in other classes. Section 5 shows that the latter course was chosen, for it enumerates various classes of works that may be registered.2 Ordinarily, the failure to enumerate “sound recordings” in § 5 would not be taken as an expression of Congress’ desire to let free competition reign in the reproduction of such recordings, for, because of the realities of the legislative process, it is generally difficult to infer from a failure to act any affirmative conclusions. Cf. Cleveland v. United States, 329 U. S. 14, 22 (1946) (Rutledge, J., concurring). But in Sears and its companion case, Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, 376 U. S. 234 (1964), the Court determined that with respect to patents and copyrights, the ordinary practice was not to prevail. In view of the importance of not imposing unnecessary restraints on competition, the Court adopted in those cases a rule of construction that, unless the failure to provide patent *578or copyright protection for some class of works could clearly be shown to reflect a judgment that state regulation was permitted, the silence of Congress would be taken to reflect a judgment that free competition should prevail. I do not find in Sears and Gompco a limitation on that rule of construction to general classes that Congress has enumerated although, of course, on the facts of those cases only items in such classes were involved; rather, the broadest language was used in those cases.3 Nor can I find in the course of legislation sufficient evidence to convince me that Congress determined to permit state regulation of the reproduction of sound recordings. For, whenever technological advances made extension of copyright protection seem wise, Congress has acted promptly. See ante, at 562-563, n. 17.4 This seems to me to reflect the same judgment that the Court found in *579Sears and Compco: Congress has decided that free competition should be the general rule, until it is convinced that the failure to provide copyright or patent protection is hindering “the Progress of Science and useful Arts.”
The business of record piracy is not an attractive one; persons in the business capitalize on the talents of others without needing to assess independently the prospect of public acceptance of a performance. But the same might be said of persons who copy “mechanical configurations.” Such people do provide low-cost reproductions that may well benefit the public. In light of the presumption of Sears and Compco that congressional silence betokens a determination that the benefits of competition outweigh the impediments placed on creativity by the lack of copyright protection, and in the absence of a congressional determination that the opposite is true, we should not let our distaste for “pirates” interfere with our interpretation of the copyright laws. I would therefore hold that, as to sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, the States may not enforce laws limiting reproduction.

 Sound recordings fixed after that date may be copyrighted. Pub. L. 92-140, 85 Stat. 391, 17 U. S. C. § 5 (n) (1970 ed, Supp. I).

 From the language of § 4 and the proviso of § 5, it could be rather strongly argued that Congress had intended to afford protection to every writing. I agree with the Court, however, that the consistent administrative interpretation of those sections, in conjunction with the practical difficulty of applying to novel cases certain statutory requirements, like that requiring placement of the notice of copyright on every copy, 17 U. S. C. § 10, precludes such an argument.

 It bears noting that in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U. S. 225 (1964), the Court repeatedly referred to the patent and copyright statutes as if the same rules of interpretation applied to both. See, e. g., id., at 228, 231 n. 7; Compeo Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, 376 U. S. 234, 237 (1964).

 Between 1909 and 1951, Congress' attention was repeatedly drawn to problems of copyrighting sound recordings. Many bills to provide copyright protection for such recordings were introduced, but none were enacted. See Ringer, The Unauthorized Duplication of Sound Recordings, Studies Prepared for the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., 21-37 (Comm. Print 1961). Respondent argues that Congress failed to enact these bills primarily out of uncertainty about the relationship between federal law and international copyright conventions, and was comforted in the knowledge that protection was available under state law. See Brief for Respondent 28-32. However, it is enough that Congress was aware of the problem, and could have acted, as it did when other technological innovations presented new problems, rather expeditiously. The problems that Congress confronted in 1971 did not spring up in 1970, but had existed, and Congress had not acted, for many years before.