264
Breyer, J., dissenting
author plus 50 years, ante, at 194-195. Ante, at 222. It is concerned about having to determine just how many years of copyright is too many—a determination that it fears would require it to find the "right" constitutional number, a task for which the Court is not well suited. See ibid.; but cf. ante, at 210, n. 17.
I share the Court's initial concern, about intrusion upon the decisionmaking authority of Congress. See ante, at 205, n. 10. But I do not believe it intrudes upon that authority to find the statute unconstitutional on the basis of (1) a legal analysis of the Copyright Clause's objectives, see supra, at 245-248, 260-263; (2) the total implausibility of any incentive effect, see supra, at 254-257; and (3) the statute's apparent failure to provide significant international uniformity, see supra, at 257-260. Nor does it intrude upon congressional authority to consider rationality in light of the expressive values underlying the Copyright Clause, related as it is to the First Amendment, and given the constitutional importance of correctly drawing the relevant Clause/Amendment boundary. Supra, at 243-245. We cannot avoid the need to examine the statute carefully by saying that "Congress has not altered the traditional contours of copyright protection," ante, at 221, for the sentence points to the question, rather than the answer. Nor should we avoid that examination here. That degree of judicial vigilance—at the far outer boundaries of the Clause—is warranted if we are to avoid the monopolies and consequent restrictions of expression that the Clause, read consistently with the First Amendment, seeks to preclude. And that vigilance is all the more necessary in a new century that will see intellectual property rights and the forms of expression that underlie them play an ever more important role in the Nation's economy and the lives of its citizens.
I do not share the Court's concern that my view of the 1998 Act could automatically doom the 1976 Act. Unlike the present statute, the 1976 Act thoroughly revised copyright law and enabled the United States to join the Berne Conven-
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