in favor of Lynn Goldsmith, whose photos of The Purple One were the original works, which Warhol then used for his own artwork. The court went against the Warhol Foundation’s argument that Warhol’s work was “transformative” enough that they were substantially different and constituted fair use.commissioned Goldsmith to photograph Prince in 1981. In 1984,got a license to use Goldsmith’s photo for an illustration, for which they commissioned Warhol.
Writing the court’s majority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor contended that the intent in Warhol’s portrait wasn’t significantly different than Goldsmiths’s as they were both commercial art of Prince intended for a magazine. Such a distinction may not apply to other famous Warhol works like his Campbell’s Soup art, she wrote, given that the soup cans are commercial while Warhol’s work was artistic commentary.
“The use of a copyrighted work may nevertheless be fair if, among other things, the use has a purpose and character that is sufficiently distinct from the original,” Sotomayor wrote. “In this case, however, Goldsmith’s photograph of Prince, and AWF’s copying use of the photograph in an image licensed to a special edition magazine devoted to Prince, share substantially the same commercial purpose.”