Opinion of the Court
‘recogniz[e] any alteration as transformative.’ ” Ibid. (quoting 4 Nimmer, Copyright §13.05[B][6]). Whether the purpose and character of a use weighs in favor of fair use is, instead, an objective inquiry into what use was made, i.e., what the user does with the original work.
Granting the District Court’s conclusion that Orange Prince reasonably can be perceived to portray Prince as iconic, whereas Goldsmith’s portrayal is photorealistic, that difference must be evaluated in the context of the specific use at issue. The use is AWF’s commercial licensing of Orange Prince to appear on the cover of Condé Nast’s special commemorative edition. The purpose of that use is, still, to illustrate a magazine about Prince with a portrait of Prince. Although the purpose could be more specifically described as illustrating a magazine about Prince with a portrait of Prince, one that portrays Prince somewhat differently from Goldsmith’s photograph (yet has no critical bearing on her photograph), that degree of difference is not enough for the first factor to favor AWF, given the specific context of the use.
To hold otherwise would potentially authorize a range of commercial copying of photographs, to be used for purposes that are substantially the same as those of the originals. As long as the user somehow portrays the subject of the photograph differently, he could make modest alterations to the original, sell it to an outlet to accompany a story about the subject, and claim transformative use. Many photographs will be open to various interpretations. A subject as open to interpretation as the human face, for example, reasonably can be perceived as conveying several possible meanings. The application of an artist’s characteristic style to bring out a particular meaning that was available in the photograph is less likely to constitute a “further purpose” as Campbell used the term. 510 U. S., at 579.
