Cite as: 537 U. S. 186 (2003)
Breyer, J., dissenting
tion—an international treaty that requires the 1976 Act's basic life-plus-50 term as a condition for substantive protections from a copyright's very inception, Berne Conv. Art. 7(1). Consequently, the balance of copyright-related harms and benefits there is far less one sided. The same is true of the 1909 and 1831 Acts, which, in any event, provided for maximum terms of 56 years or 42 years while requiring renewal after 28 years, with most copyrighted works falling into the public domain after that 28-year period, well before the putative maximum terms had elapsed. See ante, at 194; Statistical History 956-957. Regardless, the law provides means to protect those who have reasonably relied upon prior copyright statutes. See Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U. S. 728, 746 (1984). And, in any event, we are not here considering, and we need not consider, the constitutionality of other copyright statutes.
Neither do I share the Court's aversion to line-drawing in this case. Even if it is difficult to draw a single clear bright line, the Court could easily decide (as I would decide) that this particular statute simply goes too far. And such exam-ples—of what goes too far—sometimes offer better constitutional guidance than more absolute-sounding rules. In any event, "this Court sits" in part to decide when a statute exceeds a constitutional boundary. See Panhandle Oil, 277 U. S., at 223 (Holmes, J., dissenting). In my view, "[t]ext, history, and precedent," ante, at 199, support both the need to draw lines in general and the need to draw the line here short of this statute. See supra, at 242-248, 260-263. But see ante, at 199, n. 4.
Finally, the Court complains that I have not "restrained" my argument or "train[ed my] fire, as petitioners do, on Congress' choice to place existing and future copyrights in parity." Ante, at 193, n. 1, and 199, n. 4. The reason that I have not so limited my argument is my willingness to accept, for purposes of this opinion, the Court's understanding that, for reasons of "[j]ustice, policy, and equity"—as well as es-
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