Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-869_87ad.pdf
Page Number: 64.0

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

13 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

come out right unless each factor is assessed correctly.  This 
case, of course, is about (and only about) the first. 

And that factor is distinctive: It is the only one that fo-
cuses on what the copier’s use of the original work accom-
plishes.  The first factor asks about the “character” of that 
use—its “main or essential nature[,] esp[ecially] as strongly
marked and serving to distinguish.”  Webster’s Third New 
International  Dictionary  376  (1976).    And  the  first  factor 
asks about the “purpose” of the use—the “object, effect, or
result aimed at, intended, or attained.”  Id., at 1847.  In that 
way, the first factor gives the copier a chance to make his 
case.  See P. Leval, Toward a Fair Use Standard, 103 Harv. 
L. Rev. 1105, 1116 (1990) (describing factor 1 as “the soul 
of ” the “fair use defense”).  Look, the copier can say, at how 
I altered the original, and what I achieved in so doing.  Look 
at how (as Judge Leval’s seminal article put the point) the 
original was “used as raw material” and was “transformed 

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owner”).  The majority asserts that it is “aware of no authority for the 
proposition”  that  the  fourth  factor  can  thus  protect  against  unlicensed 
film adaptations, insisting that the first factor must do (or at least share
in) the work.  Ante, at 29, n. 17; see ante, at 16, 28–29, 36.  But Google is 
the “authority for the proposition”: That’s just what it said, in so many 
words.  And anyway, the majority’s own first-factor test, applied consist-
ently, would favor, not stop, the freeloading filmmaker.  As you’ve seen
(and I’ll discuss below), that test boils down to whether a follow-on work
serves substantially the same commercial purpose as the original—here, 
“depict[ing]  Prince  in  magazine  stories  about  Prince.”  Ante,  at  12–13; 
see ante, at 22–23, and n. 11, 27, n. 15, 33, 35.  A film adaptation doesn’t 
fit  that  mold:  The  filmmaker  (unlike  Warhol,  in  the  majority’s  view) 
wants to reach different buyers, in different markets, consuming differ-
ent  products.  The  majority  at  one  point  suggests  it  might  have  some 
different factor 1 test in its back pocket to deal with this problem.  See 
ante, at 35, n. 22.  But assuming the majority’s approach, as stated re-
peatedly  in  its  opinion,  is  truly  the  majority’s  approach,  factor  1  won’t 
help the author in the book-to-film situation.  Under that approach, it is
the  fourth  factor,  not  the  first,  which  has  to  “take[ ]  care  of  derivative 
works like book-to-film adaptations.”  Ante, at 29, n. 17.  It’s a good thing
the majority errs in believing that the fourth factor isn’t up to the job.