Lower Court Holding
Decision of the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
The Plaintiffs claim that the Copyright Term Extension Act [CTEA] is beyond the power of the Congress and therefore unconstitutional for three reasons: First, the CTEA, in both its prospective and retrospective applications, fails the intermediate scrutiny appropriate under the First Amendment; second, in its application to preexisting works, the CTEA violates the originality requirement of the Copyright Clause; and third, in extending the term of subsisting copyrights, the CTEA violates the "limited Times" requirement of the Copyright Clause — a requirement that they say is informed by the goal of "promot[ing] the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Because…
