Source: http://www.ipinbrief.com/is-this-legal-alchemy-when-a-copy-of-another%E2%80%99s-work-may-become-transformative-for-fair-use-purposes/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 11:48:19+00:00

Document:
Published in New York State Bar Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal, Spring 2010; for a published copy, go to link.
But what does “altering the first” work mean? Does the new work have to physically change the old or simply copy it for a new purpose? A number of recent cases, including Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp.,(4) Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley Ltd.(5) and Blanch v. Koons,(6) indicate that copying the old work for a new purpose is enough if two other criteria are also present. Understanding the criteria necessary to create a transformative copy may be useful to parties facing a fair use issue.
These cases indicate that old wine in new bottles is not fair use. Instead, the reproduction must do more than repackage the original. It must instead serve a new technological purpose as in Arriba or a new creative function as in Kindersley or Koons. Further, the reproduction must minimize the expressive elements in the original work rather than exploit or seek to profit from the elements. Thus, Arriba never offered Kelly’s images for sale or sought to use them to advertise its site. Similarly, Kindersley never attempted to use the posters for commercial gain; and Koons employed plaintiff’s photograph simply as raw material. Finally, these three cases demonstrate that the amount of original authorship that is copied in the reproduction must be insignificant.
In sum, these cases may help predict a fair use outcome when a party seeks to reproduce original authorship in a new work.
(1) 17 U.S.C. § 107 sets forth four factors that are “to be considered” in determining fair use.
(2) Warner Bros. Entm’t, Inc. v. RDR Books, 575 F. Supp. 2d 513 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) and Castle Rock Entm’t v. Carol Publ’g Group, Inc., 955 F, Supp. 260, 268 (S.D.N.Y. 1997), are the only two cases the author has been able to find that rejected fair use despite the transformative nature of defendant’s work. But in Warner Bros., the court was careful to note that defendant’s work (a reference guide to the Harry Potter books) was not “consistently transformative” because it failed to “‘minimize the expressive value’ of the original expression.” Id. at 49, 62. Further, the Second Circuit on appeal in Castle Rock held that “[a]ny transformative purpose possessed by … [defendant’s work, a trivia book about the Seinfeld television comedy series] to be slight to non-existent.” 150 F.3d 132, 142 (2d Cir. 1998).

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 107
 v. 
 v.