Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-869_87ad.pdf
Page Number: 87.0

36  ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR VISUAL ARTS, INC. 

v. GOLDSMITH 
KAGAN, J., dissenting 

and it did.  In failing to give Warhol credit for that trans-
formation, the majority distorts ultimate resolution of the
fair-use question.

Still more troubling are the consequences of today’s rul-
ing for other artists.  If Warhol does not get credit for trans-
formative copying, who will?  And when artists less famous 
than  Warhol  cannot  benefit  from  fair  use,  it  will  matter 
even more.  Goldsmith would probably have granted War-
hol a license with few conditions, and for a price well within
his  budget.  But  as  our  precedents  show,  licensors  some-
times place stringent limits on follow-on uses, especially to
prevent kinds of expression they disapprove.  And licensors 
may  charge  fees  that  prevent  many  or  most  artists  from
gaining access to original works.  Of course, that is all well 
and good if an artist wants merely to copy the original and 
market it as his own.  Preventing those uses—and thus in-
centivizing  the  creation  of  original  works—is  what  copy-
rights are for.  But when the artist wants to make a trans-
formative use, a different issue is presented.  By now, the
reason  why  should  be  obvious.  “Inhibit[ing]  subsequent
writers” and artists from “improv[ing] upon prior works”—
as  the  majority  does  today—will  “frustrate  the  very  ends
sought to be attained” by copyright law.  Harper & Row, 471 
U. S., at 549.  It will stifle creativity of every sort.  It will 
impede new art and music and literature.  It will thwart the 
expression  of  new  ideas  and  the  attainment  of  new
knowledge.  It will make our world poorer.