Cite as: 537 U. S. 186 (2003)
Stevens, J., dissenting
may have increased the protection.7 What is significant is that the statute provided a general rule creating new federal rights that supplanted the diverse state rights that previously existed. It did not extend or attach to any of those pre-existing state and common-law rights: "That congress, in passing the act of 1790, did not legislate in reference to existing rights, appears clear." Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591, 661 (1834); see also Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U. S. 123, 127 (1932) ("As this Court has repeatedly said, the Congress did not sanction an existing right but created a new one"). Congress set in place a federal structure governing certain types of intellectual property for the new Republic. That Congress exercised its unquestionable constitutional authority to create a new federal system securing rights for authors and inventors in 1790 does not provide support for the proposition that Congress can extend pre-existing federal protections retroactively.
Respondent places great weight on this first congressional action, arguing that it proves that "Congress thus unquestionably understood that it had authority to apply a new, more favorable copyright term to existing works." Brief for Respondent 12-13. That understanding, however, is not relevant to the question presented by this case—whether "Congress has the power under the Copyright Clause to extend retroactively the term of existing copyrights?" Brief for
7 Importantly, even this first Act required a quid pro quo in order to receive federal copyright protection. In order to receive protection under the Act, the author was first required to register the work: "That no person shall be entitled to the benefit of this act, in cases where any map, chart, book or books, hath or have been already printed and published, unless he shall first deposit, and in all other cases, unless he shall before publication deposit a printed copy of the title of such map, chart, book or books, in the clerk's office of the district court where the author or proprietor shall reside." § 3, 1 Stat. 124. This registration requirement in federal district court—a requirement obviously not required under the various state laws protecting written works—further illustrates that the 1790 Act created new rights, rather than extending existing rights.
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