More reaction from Lessig on Eldred v. Ashcroft, with regards to one of the essential questions I glibly dashed over yesterday:

...[M]issing from both [dissenting] opinions was the argument that I believed would win this case: That if there is a principled reason why Congress’s power is limited in the context of the commerce clause (and elsewhere), then that reason applies even more strongly in the context of the copyright clause. As we said over and over again, if you agree with the line of cases that Chief Justice Rehnquist is most famous for, then you must agree that the Copyright Clause restricts retroactive extensions. As the Chief Justice taught in the case of Lopez, if an interpretation of Congress’s power yields the conclusion that Congress’s power is unlimited, it is an improper interpretation. Yet that is precisely what the government conceded its interpretation did.