Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-869_87ad.pdf
Page Number: 62.0

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

11 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

use.  That answer comports with the copyright statute, its
underlying  policy,  and  our  precedent  concerning  the  two. 
Under established copyright law (until today), Warhol’s ad-
dition  of  important  “new  expression,  meaning,  [and]  mes-
sage” counts in his favor in the fair-use inquiry.  Campbell, 
510 U. S., at 579. 

Start by asking a broader question: Why do we have “fair 
use” anyway?  The majority responds that while copyrights
encourage the making of creative works, fair use promotes 
their “public availability.”  Ante, at 13 (internal quotation 
marks  omitted).    But  that  description  sells  fair  use  far 
short.  Beyond promoting “availability,” fair  use itself ad-
vances creativity and artistic progress.  See Campbell, 510 
U. S., at 575, 579 (fair use is “necessary to fulfill copyright’s
very purpose”—to “promote science and the arts”).  That is 
because creative work does not happen in a vacuum.  “Noth-
ing  comes  from  nothing,  nothing  ever  could,”  said  song-
writer Richard Rodgers, maybe thinking not only about love 
and marriage but also about how the Great American Song-
book  arose  from  vaudeville,  ragtime,  the  blues,  and  jazz.4 
This Court has long understood the point—has gotten how 
new art, new invention, and new knowledge arise from ex-
isting works.  Our seminal opinion on fair use quoted the 
illustrious Justice Story: 

“In truth, in literature, in science and in art, there are, 
and  can  be,  few,  if  any,  things,  which  . . .  are  strictly 

—————— 

4 In  the  spirit  of  this  opinion,  I  might  have  quoted  that  line  without
further ascription.  But lawyers believe in citations, so I will tell you that
the Rodgers lyric (which is, of course, from the Sound of Music) is used—
to make the same point I do—in Rob Kapilow’s Listening for America:
Inside  the  Great  American  Songbook  From  Gershwin  to  Sondheim 
(2019).  One of that book’s themes is that even the most “radically new” 
music builds on existing works—or as Irving Berlin put the point, “songs
make  history,  and  history  makes  songs.”  Id.,  at  xv,  2.   And  so  too  for 
every other form of art.  See infra, at 26–34 (making this point at greater 
length—and with pictures!).