Z:gnu-www-ja-eldred-amicus--8fefda-On the logic of the Court of A/en

On the logic of the Court of Appeals' holding, which is apparently supported in this Court by the Solicitor General, Congress could pass a statute shortening the term of existing copyrights, reallocating a large body of currently-covered works to the public domain. If the statute simply provided that the term of copyright be reduced to fourteen years, according to the Court of Appeals, that would satisfy the requirement of &ldquo;limited Times,&rdquo; and there would be no occasion for the Courts to inquire into whether such a change promoted the progress of science and the useful arts, though copyright holders could well be expected to contend that such an alteration of the duration of existing copyrights deprived them of the benefit that the &ldquo;copyright bargain&rdquo; supposedly &ldquo;secures&rdquo; them.