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22  ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR VISUAL ARTS, INC. 

v. GOLDSMITH 
Opinion of the Court 

A typical use of a celebrity photograph is to accompany
stories about the celebrity, often in magazines.  For exam-
ple, Goldsmith licensed her photographs of Prince to illus-
trate stories about Prince in magazines such as Newsweek,
Vanity Fair, and People.  Supra, at 3–6.  She even licensed 
her photographs for that purpose after Prince died in 2016. 
Supra, at 7.  A photographer may also license her creative 
work  to  serve  as  a  reference  for  an  artist,  like  Goldsmith 
did  in  1984  when  Vanity  Fair  wanted  an  image  of  Prince 
created by Warhol to illustrate an article about Prince.  As 
noted by the Court of Appeals, Goldsmith introduced “un-
controverted”  evidence  “that  photographers  generally  li-
cense others to create stylized derivatives of their work in
the vein of the Prince Series.”  11 F. 4th, at 50; see 2 App. 
291–299.  In  fact,  Warhol  himself  paid  to  license  photo-
graphs for some of his artistic renditions.  Such licenses, for 
photographs or derivatives of them, are how photographers 
like  Goldsmith  make  a  living.  They  provide  an  economic 
incentive to create original works, which is the goal of copy-
right.

In  2016,  AWF  licensed  an  image  of  Orange  Prince  to 
Condé Nast to appear on the cover of a commemorative edi-
tion magazine about Prince.  The edition, titled “The Genius 
of  Prince,”  celebrates  the  life  and  work  of  “Prince  Rogers 
Nelson, 1958–2016.”  It is undisputed here that the edition
is “devoted to Prince.”   2 App. 352.  In addition to AWF’s 
image on the cover, the magazine contains numerous con-
cert and studio photographs of Prince.  In that context, the 
purpose  of  the  image  is  substantially  the  same  as  that  of
Goldsmith’s photograph.  Both are portraits of Prince used 

—————— 
tence, post, at 1 (“Today, the Court declares that Andy Warhol’s eye-pop-
ping silkscreen of Prince . . . is (in copyright lingo) not ‘transformative’ ”), 
to its very last, post, at 36 (“[The majority opinion] will make our world 
poorer”).