Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 21.0

Cite as:  593 U. S. ____ (2021) 

17 

Opinion of the Court 

program copyright, such as the copyright at issue here.  It 
can help to distinguish among technologies.  It can distin-
guish  between  expressive  and  functional  features  of  com-
puter code where those features are mixed.  It can focus on 
the legitimate need to provide incentives to produce copy-
righted material while examining the extent to which yet
further protection creates unrelated or illegitimate harms
in other markets or to the development of other products.
In a word, it can carry out its basic purpose of providing a 
context-based check that can help to keep a copyright mo-
nopoly  within  its  lawful  bounds.    See  H. R.  Rep.  No.  94–
1476, pp. 65–66 (1976) (explaining that courts are to “adapt
the doctrine [of fair use] to particular situations on a case-
by-case basis” and in light of “rapid technological change”); 
see, e.g., Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, 
Inc., 387 F. 3d 522, 543–545 (CA6 2004) (discussing fair use 
in  the  context  of  copying  to  preserve  compatibility);  Sony 
Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corp., 203 F. 3d 
596, 603–608 (CA9 2000) (applying fair use to intermediate 
copying necessary to reverse engineer access to unprotected 
functional  elements  within  a  program);  Sega  Enterprises 
Ltd.  v.  Accolade,  Inc.,  977  F. 2d  1510,  1521–1527  (CA9 
1992) (holding that wholesale copying of copyrighted code
as a preliminary step to develop a competing product was a 
fair use).

JUSTICE THOMAS’ thoughtful dissent offers a very differ-
ent view of how (and perhaps whether) fair use has any role
to play for computer programs.  We are told that no attempt 
to  distinguish  among  computer  code  is  tenable  when  con-
sidering  “the  nature  of  the  work,”  see  post,  at  10,  even 
though  there  are  important  distinctions  in  the  ways  that 
programs are used and designed, post, at 18 (“The declaring 
code is what attracted programmers”).  We are told that no 
reuse of code in a new program will ever have a valid “pur-
pose  and  character,”  post,  at  16,  even  though  the  reasons 
for copying computer code may vary greatly and differ from