This is a list of Supreme Court of the United States cases in the area of copyright law. In the United States Constitution, the Copyright Clause in Article 1, Section 8 endows Congress with the power to create a copyright system. To avoid individual states' attempts at creating their own copyright systems, Congress passed the Copyright Act of 1790, based on Great Britain's Statute of Anne. Over the decades since, copyright in the United States has become a more complicated system with longer terms and more tests, and has been the subject of many decisions by the Court.