Respondent Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., filed suit against petitioners, the members of the rap music group 2 Live Crew and their record company, claiming that 2 Live Crews song, "Pretty Woman," infringed Acuff-Roses copyright in Roy Orbisons rock ballad, "Oh Pretty Woman." The District Court granted summary judgment for 2 Live Crew, holding that its song was a parody that made fair use of the original song. See Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. 107. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the commercial nature of the parody rendered it presumptively unfair under the first of four factors relevant under 107; that, by taking the "heart" of the original and making it the "heart" of a new work, 2 Live Crew had, qualitatively, taken too much under the third 107 factor; and that market harm for purposes of the fourth 107 factor had been established by a presumption attaching to commercial uses.

Held:

2 Live Crews commercial parody may be a fair use within the meaning of 107. Pp. 4-25.

(a) Section 107, which provides that "the fair use of a copyrighted work . . . for purposes such as criticism [or] comment . . . is not an infringement . . .," continues the common law tradition of fair use adjudication, and requires case-by-case analysis, rather than bright-line rules. The statutory examples of permissible uses provide only general guidance. The four statutory factors are to be explored and weighed together in light of copyrights purpose of promoting science and the arts. Pp. 4-8.

(b) Parody, like other comment and criticism, may claim fair use. Under the first of the four 107 factors, "the purpose and Page II character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature . . .," the enquiry focuses on whether the new work merely supersedes the objects of the original creation, or whether and to what extent it is "transformative," altering the original with new expression, meaning, or message. The more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use. The heart of any parodists claim to quote from existing material is the use of some elements of a prior authors composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that authors work. But that tells courts little about where to draw the line. Thus, like other uses, parody has to work its way through the relevant factors. Pp. 8-12.

(c) The Court of Appeals properly assumed that 2 Live Crews song contains parody commenting on and criticizing the original work, but erred in giving virtually dispositive weight to the commercial nature of that parody by way of a presumption, ostensibly culled from Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 451, that "every commercial use of copyrighted material is presumptively . . . unfair. . . ." The statute makes clear that a works commercial nature is only one element of the first factor enquiry into its purpose and character, and Sony itself called for no hard evidentiary presumption. The Court of Appeals rule runs counter to Sony and to the long common law tradition of fair use adjudication. Pp. 12-16.

(d) The second 107 factor, "the nature of the copyrighted work," is not much help in resolving this and other parody cases, since parodies almost invariably copy publicly known, expressive works, like the Orbison song here. Pp. 16-17.

(e) The Court of Appeals erred in holding that, as a matter of law, 2 Live Crew copied excessively from the Orbison original under the third 107 factor, which asks whether "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" are reasonable in relation to the copyings purpose. Even if 2 Live Crews copying of the originals first line of lyrics and characteristic opening bass ri