It struck me as odd as well, but the article mentions near the end that it apparently does happen from time to time, which I was not aware of. I share your vie

It struck me as odd as well, but the article mentions near the end that it apparently does happen from time to time, which I was not aware of. I share your viewpoint, though. Not sure why the USSC would ever ask the executive branch whether or not it should hear a case. The justices are more than capable of determining if it warrants their time. I suspect the reason for the request is that this could have a significant and unexpected downstream effect should they hear the case and end up ruling in an unforeseen manner. They could conceivably alter the copyright laws in serious ways that no one wants. That being said, I still think they should probably never ask for guidance like this because the effect of their ruling is not their problem. They need to uphold the law. If there are unforeseen, undesirable consequences then it is the job of the legislative branch to rectify that. This is what happened with the Affordable Care Act. The USSC was given testimony that confirmed the language, meaning, and reason behind one of the key portions - the requirement that states must implement their own exchange to receive Federal subsidies for healthcare to pass along to the newly insured citizens. This became a major issue because a large number of states didn't create their own exchanges but the Obama administration still wanted to dole out the subsidies. Instead of upholding the law as written in clear language and which was confirmed by the actual writers of that section of the bill, they instead did the exact opposite and basically ruled that since ruling to uphold it as-is would essentially destroy Obamacare, they would have to allow the subsidies because that one clause would effectively destroy the entire program since the states didn't take it up as expected (but not required). What should have happened in that scenario is that the USSC should have upheld the language as written, which would have forced the legislative branch to actually change/fix the law with an amendment. But this was no longer politically possible and the court knew that, so they instead ignored the law and basically re-wrote it - which is a power they don't actually have.