Eldred v. Ashcroft

In Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended the term of most existing copyrights to 95 years and that of many new copyrights to 70 years after the author's death. The economic effect of this 20-year extension—the longest blanket extension since the Nation's founding—was to make the copyright term not limited, but virtually perpetual. Its primary legal effect was to grant the extended term not to authors, but to their heirs, estates, or corporate successors. But the Court upheld the law under the Constitution's Copyright Clause, which grants Congress the power to "promote the Progress of Science ... by securing for limited Times to Authors ... the exclusive Right to their respective Writings." Art. I, § 8, cl. 8.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion for the 7-2 Court. As of 2023, only Justice Clarence Thomas in that majority remains on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dissents

Justice John Paul Stevens dissented by arguing that the Court majority ignored "the central purpose of the Copyright/Patent Clause -- the Court has quitclaimed to Congress its principal responsibility in this area of the law. Fairly read, the Court has stated that Congress' actions under the Copyright/Patent Clause are, for all intents and purposes, judicially unreviewable." Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186, 242, 123 S. Ct. 769, 801 (2003) (Stevens, J., dissenting). . Justice Stephen Breyer also vigorously dissented, writing that the practical effect of the law is not to promote, but to inhibit, the progress of "Science"—by which word the Framers meant learning or knowledge.

Both Justices Stevens and Breyer thought that perpetually extending copyright would be unconstitutional, and Justice Breyer mentioned First Amendment concerns.