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24  ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR VISUAL ARTS, INC. 

v. GOLDSMITH 
KAGAN, J., dissenting 

no such awareness of how copying can help produce valua-
ble new works. 

Nor does our precedent support the majority’s strong dis-
tinction between follow-on works that “target” the original
and those that do not.  Ante, at 35.  (Even the majority does 
not claim that anything in the text does so.)  True enough
that the rap song in Campbell fell into the former category:
2 Live Crew urged that its work was a parody of Orbison’s 
song.  But even in discussing the value of parody, Campbell 
made clear the limits of targeting’s importance.  The Court 
observed that as the “extent of transformation” increases, 
the  relevance  of  targeting  decreases.  510  U. S.,  at  581, 
n. 14.  Google proves the point.  The new work there did not 
parody,  comment  on,  or  otherwise  direct  itself  to  the  old:
The former just made use of the latter for its own devices.
Yet that fact never made an appearance in the Court’s opin-
ion;  what  mattered  instead  was  the  “highly  creative”  use 
Google  had  made  of  the  copied  code.    That  decision  is  on 
point  here.    Would  Warhol’s  work  really  have  been  more
worthy  of  protection  if  it  had  (somehow)  “she[d]  light”  on 
Goldsmith’s photograph, rather than on Prince, his celeb-
rity status, and celebrity culture?  Ante, at 27.  Would that 
Goldsmith-focused work (whatever it might be) have more
meaningfully  advanced  creative  progress,  which  is  copy-
right’s  raison  d’être,  than  the  work  he  actually  made?    I 
can’t see how; more like the opposite.  The majority’s pref-
erence for the directed work, apparently on grounds of ne-
cessity, see ante, at 27, 34–35, again reflects its undervalu-
ing of transformative copying as a core part of artistry.

And there’s the rub.  (Yes, that’s mostly Shakespeare.)  As 
Congress knew, and as this Court once saw, new creations 
come from building on—and, in the process, transforming—
those  coming  before.  Today’s  decision  stymies  and  sup-
presses that process, in art and every other kind of creative
endeavor.  The  decision  enhances  a  copyright  holder’s 
power  to  inhibit  artistic  development,  by  enabling  her  to