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34  ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR VISUAL ARTS, INC. 

v. GOLDSMITH 
Opinion of the Court 

AWF asserts another, albeit related, purpose, which is to
comment on the “dehumanizing nature” and “effects” of ce-
lebrity.  Brief for Petitioner 44, 51.  No doubt, many of War-
hol’s works, and particularly his uses of repeated images, 
can  be  perceived  as  depicting  celebrities  as  commodities.
But  again,  even  if  such  commentary  is  perceptible  on  the 
cover  of  Condé  Nast’s  tribute  to  “Prince  Rogers  Nelson,
1958–2016,” on the occasion of the man’s death, AWF has a 
problem: The asserted commentary is at Campbell’s lowest 
ebb.  Because  it  “has  no  critical  bearing  on”  Goldsmith’s
photograph,20 the  commentary’s  “claim  to  fairness  in  bor-
rowing  from”  her  work  “diminishes  accordingly  (if  it  does 
not vanish).”  510 U. S., at 580.21  The commercial nature of 
the use, on the other hand, “loom[s] larger.”  Ibid. 

—————— 

20 At  no  point  in  this  litigation  has  AWF  maintained  that  any  of  the 
Prince  Series  works,  let  alone  Orange  Prince  on  the  cover  of  the  2016 
Condé  Nast  special  edition,  comment  on,  criticize,  or  otherwise  target 
Goldsmith’s photograph.  That makes sense, given that the photograph 
was  unpublished  when  Goldsmith  licensed  it  to  Vanity  Fair,  and  that 
neither Warhol nor Vanity Fair selected the photograph, which was in-
stead provided by Goldsmith’s agency. 

21 The  dissent  wonders:  Why  does  targeting  matter?    See  post,  at  24 
(opinion of KAGAN, J.).  The reason, as this opinion explains, is the first
factor’s attention to justification.  Supra, at 17–20, and nn. 7–8, 29–30, 
and n. 18 (citing Campbell, 510 U. S., at 580–581; Google, 593 U. S., at 
___ (slip op., at 26)).  Compare, for example, a film adaptation of Gone
With  the  Wind  with  a  novel,  The  Wind  Done  Gone,  that  “inverts”  the 
original’s “portrait of race relations” to expose its “romantic, idealized” 
portrayal of the antebellum South.  SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin 
Co., 268 F. 3d 1257, 1270 (CA11 2001); id., at 1280 (Marcus, J., specially 
concurring).    Or,  to  build  from  one  of  the  artistic  works  the  dissent 
chooses to feature, consider a secondary use that borrows from Manet’s
Olympia to shed light on the original’s depiction of race and sex.  See R. 
Storr & C. Armstrong, Lunch With Olympia (2016).  Although targeting
is not always required, fair use is an affirmative defense, and AWF bears 
the  burden  to  justify  its  taking  of  Goldsmith’s  work  with  some  reason
other than, “I can make it better.”