Cite as: 537 U. S. 186 (2003)
Breyer, J., dissenting
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—is to make the copyright term not limited, but virtually perpetual. Its primary legal effect is to grant the extended term not to authors, but to their heirs, estates, or corporate successors. And most importantly, its practical effect is not to promote, but to inhibit, the progress of "Science"—by which word the Framers meant learning or knowledge, E. Walterscheid, The Nature of the Intellectual Property Clause: A Study in Historical Perspective 125-126 (2002).
The majority believes these conclusions rest upon practical judgments that at most suggest the statute is unwise, not that it is unconstitutional. Legal distinctions, however, are often matters of degree. Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U. S. 218, 223 (1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting), overruled in part by Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1, 8-9 (1941); accord, Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U. S. 664, 678-679 (1970). And in this case the failings of degree are so serious that they amount to failings of constitutional kind. Although the Copyright Clause grants broad legislative power to Congress, that grant has limits. And in my view this statute falls outside them.
I
The "monopoly privileges" that the Copyright Clause confers "are neither unlimited nor primarily designed to provide a special private benefit." Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U. S. 417, 429 (1984); cf. Graham v. John Deere Co. of Kansas City, 383 U. S. 1, 5 (1966). This Court has made clear that the Clause's limitations are judicially enforceable. E. g., Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U. S. 82, 93-94 (1879). And, in assessing this statute for that purpose, I would take into account the fact that the Constitution is a single document, that it contains both a
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