Cite as 508 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2007)
Hotaling. Accordingly, the district court correctly concluded that Perfect 10 does not have a likelihood of success in proving that Google violates Perfect 10’s distribution rights with respect to full-size images.
- C. Fair Use Defense
Because Perfect 10 has succeeded in showing it would prevail in its prima facie case that Google’s thumbnail images infringe Perfect 10’s display rights, the burden shifts to Google to show that it will likely succeed in establishing an affirmative defense. Google contends that its use of thumbnails is a fair use of the images and therefore does not constitute an infringement of Perfect 10’s copyright. See 17 U.S.C. § 107.
The fair use defense permits the use of copyrighted works without the copyright owner’s consent under certain situations. The defense encourages and allows the development of new ideas that build on earlier ones, thus providing a necessary counterbalance to the copyright law’s goal of protecting creators’ work product. “From the infancy of copyright protection, some opportunity for fair use of copyrighted materials has been thought necessary to fulfill copyright’s very purpose ….” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 575, 114 S.Ct. 1164. “The fair use doctrine thus ‘permits [and requires] courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright statute when, on occasion, it would stifle the very creativity which that law is designed to foster.’ ” Id. at 577, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (quoting Stewart v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207, 236, 110 S.Ct. 1750, 109 L.Ed.2d 184 (1990)) (alteration in original).
Congress codified the common law of fair use in 17 U.S.C. § 107, which provides:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
17 U.S.C. § 107.
We must be flexible in applying a fair use analysis; it “is not to be simplified with bright-line rules, for the statute, like the doctrine it recognizes, calls for case-by-case analysis.… Nor may the four statutory factors be treated in isolation, one from another. All are to be explored, and the results weighed together, in light of the purposes of copyright.” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 577–78, 114 S.Ct. 1164; see also Kelly, 336 F.3d at 817–18. The purpose of copyright law is “[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 8, and to serve “ ‘the welfare of the public.’ ” Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 429 n. 10, 104 S.Ct. 774, 78 L.Ed.2d 574 (quoting H.R.Rep. No. 2222, 60th Cong., 2d Sess. 7 (1909)).
