Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-869_87ad.pdf
Page Number: 66

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

15 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

of fair use.  Id., at 583.  And that was so even though the
rap song was, as everyone agreed, recorded and later sold 
for profit.  See id., at 573. 

Just  two  Terms  ago,  in  Google,  we  made  all  the  same 
points.  We quoted Campbell in explaining that the factor 1
inquiry is “whether the copier’s use ‘adds something new,
with a further purpose or different character, altering’ the 
copyrighted  work  ‘with  new  expression,  meaning,  or  mes-
sage.’ ”  593 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 24).  We again described
“a copying use that adds something new and important” as
“transformative.”    Ibid.  We  reiterated  that  protecting
transformative uses “stimulate[s] creativity” and thus “ful-
fill[s] the objective of copyright law.”  Ibid. (quoting Leval 
1111).  And then we gave an example.  Yes, of course, we 
pointed to Andy Warhol.  (The majority claims not to be em-
barrassed  by  this  embarrassing  fact  because  the  specific
reference  was  to  his  Soup  Cans,  rather  than  his  celebrity 
images.  But drawing a distinction between a “commentary
on consumerism”—which is how the majority describes his 
soup canvases, ante, at 27—and a commentary on celebrity 
culture, i.e., the turning of people into consumption items,
is slicing the baloney pretty thin.)  Finally, the Court con-
ducted the first-factor inquiry it had described.  Google had 
replicated  Sun  Microsystems’  computer  code  as  part  of  a 
“commercial endeavor,” done “for commercial profit.”  593 
U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  27).    No  matter,  said  the  Court. 
“[M]any  common  fair  uses  are  indisputably  commercial.” 
Ibid.    What  mattered  instead  was  that  Google  had  used 
Sun’s  code  to  make  “something  new  and  important”:  a 
“highly creative and innovative” software platform.  Id., at 
___–___ (slip op., at 24–25).  The use of the code, the Court 
held, was therefore “transformative” and “point[ed] toward
fair use.”  Id., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 25, 28). 

Campbell and Google also illustrate the difference it can 
make in the world to protect transformative works through
fair use.  Easy enough to say (as the majority does, see ante,