Cite as: 537 U. S. 186 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
Congress has labored to achieve."); Sony, 464 U. S., at 429 ("[I]t is Congress that has been assigned the task of defining the scope of [rights] that should be granted to authors or to inventors in order to give the public appropriate access to their work product."); Graham, 383 U. S., at 6 ("Within the limits of the constitutional grant, the Congress may, of course, implement the stated purpose of the Framers by selecting the policy which in its judgment best effectuates the constitutional aim."). The justifications we earlier set out for Congress' enactment of the CTEA, supra, at 205-207, provide a rational basis for the conclusion that the CTEA "promote[s] the Progress of Science."
On the issue of copyright duration, Congress, from the start, has routinely applied new definitions or adjustments of the copyright term to both future works and existing works not yet in the public domain.19 Such consistent congressional practice is entitled to "very great weight, and when it is remembered that the rights thus established have not been disputed during a period of [over two] centur[ies], it is almost conclusive." Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U. S., at 57. Indeed, "[t]his Court has repeatedly laid down the principle that a contemporaneous legislative exposition of the Constitution when the founders of our Government and framers of our Constitution were actively participating in public affairs, acquiesced in for a long term of years, fixes the construction to be given [the Constitution's] provisions." Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 175 (1926). Congress' unbroken practice since the founding gen-19 As we have noted, see supra, at 196, n. 3, petitioners seek to distinguish the 1790 Act from those that followed. They argue that by requiring authors seeking its protection to surrender whatever rights they had under state law, the 1790 Act enhanced uniformity and certainty and thus "promote[d] . . . Progress." See Brief for Petitioners 28-31. This account of the 1790 Act simply confirms, however, that the First Congress understood it could "promote . . . Progress" by extending copyright protection to existing works. Every subsequent adjustment of copyright's duration, including the CTEA, reflects a similar understanding.
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