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ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR VISUAL ARTS, INC. 
v. GOLDSMITH 
Syllabus 

alternative, fair use.  Goldsmith counterclaimed for infringement.  The 
District Court considered the four fair use factors in 17 U. S. C. §107
and granted AWF summary judgment on its defense of fair use.  The 
Court of Appeals reversed, finding that all four fair use factors favored 
Goldsmith.  In this Court, the sole question presented is whether the 
first fair use factor, “the purpose and character of the use, including 
whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educa-
tional purposes,” §107(1), weighs in favor of AWF’s recent commercial
licensing to Condé Nast. 

Held: The  “purpose  and  character”  of  AWF’s  use  of  Goldsmith’s  photo-
graph in commercially licensing Orange Prince to Condé Nast does not 
favor AWF’s fair use defense to copyright infringement.  Pp. 12–38.

(a) AWF contends that the Prince Series works are “transformative,”
and that the first fair use factor thus weighs in AWF’s favor, because 
the works convey a different meaning or message than the photograph. 
But  the  first  fair  use  factor  instead  focuses  on  whether  an  allegedly
infringing use has a further purpose or different character, which is a
matter of degree, and the degree of difference must be weighed against
other considerations, like commercialism.  Although new expression, 
meaning, or message may be relevant to whether a copying use has a
sufficiently distinct purpose or character, it is not, without more, dis-
positive of the first factor.  Here, the specific use of Goldsmith’s photo-
graph alleged to infringe her copyright is AWF’s licensing of Orange
Prince to Condé Nast.  As portraits of Prince used to depict Prince in
magazine  stories  about  Prince,  the  original  photograph  and  AWF’s 
copying  use  of  it  share  substantially  the  same  purpose.    Moreover, 
AWF’s use is of a commercial nature.  Even though Orange Prince adds 
new expression to Goldsmith’s photograph, in the context of the chal-
lenged use, the first fair use factor still favors Goldsmith.  Pp. 12–27.
(1) The Copyright Act encourages creativity by granting to the crea-
tor of an original work a bundle of rights that includes the rights to
reproduce the copyrighted work and to prepare derivative works.  17 
U. S. C. §106.  Copyright, however, balances the benefits of incentives 
to create against the costs of restrictions on copying.  This balancing
act is reflected in the common-law doctrine of fair use, codified in §107,
which provides: “[T]he fair use of a copyrighted work, . . . for purposes 
such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching . . . , scholarship, 
or  research,  is  not  an  infringement  of  copyright.”    To  determine 
whether a particular use is “fair,” the statute enumerates four factors 
to be considered.  The factors “set forth general principles, the appli-
cation of which requires judicial balancing, depending upon relevant 
circumstances.”  Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., 593 U. S. ___, ___. 
The first fair use factor, “the purpose and character of the use, in-
cluding whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit