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18  ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR VISUAL ARTS, INC. 

v. GOLDSMITH 
KAGAN, J., dissenting 

if such commentary is perceptible”).  And as for the District 
Court’s view that Warhol transformed Prince from a “vul-
nerable, uncomfortable person to an iconic, larger-than-life
figure,” the majority is downright dismissive.  Ante, at 32. 
Vulnerable,  iconic—who  cares?  The  silkscreen  and  the 
photo,  the  majority  claims,  still  have  the  same  “essential
nature.”  Ante, at 25, n. 14 (emphasis deleted).

The description is disheartening.  It’s as though Warhol
is an Instagram filter, and a simple one at that (e.g., sepia-
tinting).  “What is all the fuss about?,” the majority wants 
to know.  Ignoring reams of expert evidence—explaining, as
every art historian could explain, exactly what the fuss is 
about—the majority plants itself firmly in the “I could paint
that” school of art criticism.  No wonder the majority sees 
the two images as essentially fungible products in the mag-
azine  market—publish  this  one,  publish  that  one,  what 
does it matter?  See ante, at 22–23; supra, at 10.  The prob-
lem is that it does matter, for all the reasons given in the
record  and  discussed  above.    See  supra,  at  9–10.    Warhol 
based his silkscreen on a photo, but fundamentally changed
its character and meaning.  In belittling those creative con-
tributions,  the  majority  guarantees  that  it  will  reach  the 
wrong result. 

Worse still, the majority maintains that those contribu-
tions, even if significant, just would not matter.  All of War-
hol’s  artistry  and  social  commentary  is  negated  by  one
thing: Warhol licensed his portrait to a magazine, and Gold-
smith  sometimes  licensed  her  photos  to  magazines  too. 
That  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  majority  opinion.
Over and over, the majority incants that “[b]oth [works] are
portraits  of  Prince  used  in  magazines  to  illustrate  stories 
about Prince”; they therefore both “share substantially the
same purpose”—meaning, a commercial one.  Ante, at 22– 
23, 38; see ante, at 12–13, 27, n. 15, 33, 35.  Or said other-
wise, because Warhol entered into a licensing transaction
with Condé Nast, he could not get any help from factor 1—