Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith

In 1981, professional photographer Lynn Goldsmith (defendant) took copyrighted photographs of up-and-coming musician Prince Rogers Nelson. Goldsmith licensed a photograph to Vanity Fair to be used one time to create an illustration for one specific magazine issue. Artist Andy Warhol used Goldsmith’s photograph to create that licensed illustration and to make 15 additional, unlicensed illustrations, collectively called the Prince Series. Many years later, celebrity musician Prince died. By then, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (foundation) (plaintiff) owned any copyrights in the Prince Series. Magazine publisher Condé Nast paid the foundation $10,000 to use a Prince Series illustration known as Orange Prince in a tribute issue. Goldsmith claimed that Orange Prince infringed on her copyright in the original photograph. The foundation filed a declaratory-judgment action. The foundation argued that Orange Prince was a fair, transformative use of Goldsmith’s photograph because the works conveyed different messages: the photograph showed Prince as a vulnerable human, and the illustration showed Prince as an iconic, dehumanized celebrity. The district court found that Orange Prince made fair use of Goldsmith’s copyrighted photograph and ruled for the foundation. The Second Circuit reversed, finding that the fair-use test’s factors all weighed against a fair-use finding. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review only the test’s first factor.