Kagan, J., dissenting
at 36) that a follow-on creator should just pay a licensing fee for its use of an original work. But sometimes copyright holders charge an out-of-range price for licenses. And other times they just say no. In Campbell, for example, Orbison’s successor-in-interest turned down 2 Live Crew’s request for a license, hoping to block the rap take-off of the original song. See 510 U. S., at 572–573. And in Google, the parties could not agree on licensing terms, as Sun insisted on conditions that Google thought would have subverted its business model. See 593 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 3). So without fair use, 2 Live Crew’s and Google’s works—however new and important—might never have been made or, if made, never have reached the public. The prospect of that loss to “creative progress” is what lay behind the Court’s inquiry into transformativeness—into the expressive novelty of the follow-on work (regardless whether the original creator granted permission). Id., at ___ (slip op., at 25); see Campbell, 510 U. S., at 579.
Now recall all the ways Warhol, in making a Prince portrait from the Goldsmith photo, “add[ed] something new, with a further purpose or different character”—all the ways he “alter[ed] the [original work’s] expression, meaning, [and] message.” Ibid. The differences in form and appearance, relating to “composition, presentation, color palette, and media.” 1 App. 227; see supra, at 7–10. The differences in meaning that arose from replacing a realistic—and indeed humanistic—depiction of the performer with an unnatural, disembodied, masklike one. See ibid. The conveyance of new messages about celebrity culture and its personal and societal impacts. See ibid. The presence of, in a word, “transformation”—the kind of creative building that copyright exists to encourage. Warhol’s use, to be sure, had a commercial aspect. Like most artists, Warhol did not want to hide his works in a garret; he wanted to sell them. But as Campbell and Google both demonstrate (and as fur-
