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Transformative use

Transformative use is a in copyright law that evaluates whether a secondary work qualifies as by determining if it alters the original copyrighted material with new expression, meaning, or message, thereby serving a further or different character without merely superseding the original's market. This concept, central to the first factor of the fair use test under 17 U.S.C. § 107—the and character of the use—originated in the Supreme Court's decision in (1994), where the Court explained that transformative works add value by transforming the original rather than replicating it, with the degree of transformation influencing the weight of other fair use factors such as commercial nature. Courts apply this standard across various contexts, including , , commentary, news reporting, , , and , often favoring uses that or on the original work itself. The transformative use inquiry, while not exhaustive of analysis, has evolved through to balance and creativity against the rights of copyright holders. In Campbell, the upheld a commercial of Orbison's "" by as potentially , emphasizing that inherently critiques and thus transforms it, even if commercially motivated. Subsequent cases, such as Authors Guild v. , Inc. (2015), extended the doctrine to non-expressive uses like digitizing books for search functionality, deeming such indexing transformative because it provided public access to information without displacing market. However, the clarified in Andy Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. (2023) that adding new expression alone does not suffice for transformation if the secondary use shares the same purpose as and competes in its market; in that case, 's silkscreen adaptations of a photographer's of were not transformative when licensed for similar magazine illustration purposes. This ruling underscores that transformative use requires a distinct purpose, preventing it from becoming a blanket justification for copying, and the doctrine continues to be applied and debated in emerging contexts such as training on copyrighted works. Overall, transformative use promotes cultural and artistic progress by permitting works that build upon existing ones, but it remains a nuanced, case-by-case evaluation integrated with the four factors to avoid undermining incentives.

Conceptual Foundations

Transformative use is a pivotal within the U.S. doctrine, referring to the use of a copyrighted work in a secondary creation that adds new expression, meaning, or message to , thereby altering its purpose or without merely superseding it. This standard evaluates whether the secondary work transforms by providing a further purpose or different , such as through , commentary, or other creative repurposing, rather than replicating it for its inherent value. The core purpose of transformative use is to foster and free expression by permitting secondary works that enrich cultural discourse and advance the constitutional goals of , which aim to promote the progress of science and useful arts, as opposed to uses that simply copy for commercial exploitation without adding value. It serves as an exception to the copyright holder's exclusive rights, encouraging innovation while balancing protection against undue restriction on public access and expression. Transformative uses differ fundamentally from derivative works, which fall under the copyright owner's exclusive right to create adaptations or modifications of the original under 17 U.S.C. § 106(2), as they instead qualify as fair uses that genuinely alter the expressive content of the source material without requiring a license. This doctrine resides within the fair use provision of 17 U.S.C. § 107, where transformative use constitutes the "heart" of the first statutory factor—the purpose and character of the use—guiding courts in assessing whether a use justifies exemption from infringement liability.

Historical Origins

The concept of transformative use in copyright law emerged gradually from the roots of the doctrine, which predated its codification in the and emphasized equitable balancing between creators' rights and public access to knowledge. Early judicial decisions in the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Folsom v. Marsh (), laid the groundwork by permitting uses that served , commentary, or without unduly harming the original work's market, though without explicit terminology like "transformative." This approach continued into the mid-20th century, focusing on whether a secondary use substituted for or added value to the original. In the and , courts handling parody and criticism cases began articulating principles that implicitly aligned with transformative notions, particularly by distinguishing uses that did not supersede the original from those that merely replicated it. A seminal example is Berlin v. E.C. Publications, Inc. (1964), where the Second Circuit held that Mad Magazine's satirical of Irving 's songs constituted because they borrowed only brief phrases necessary to evoke the originals, while adding new humorous commentary that did not fulfill public demand for the source material or compete in its market. Similarly, Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. (1984)—the case—recognized noncommercial time-shifting of television broadcasts as under the first statutory factor (purpose and character of the use), as it enabled personal viewing at a convenient time without altering the content but expanding access without proven market harm, though the opinion did not employ the term "transformative." These rulings reflected a growing judicial tolerance for uses that repurposed copyrighted material in non-substitutive ways, influencing the doctrine's amid technological and expressive challenges. The transition to a more structured modern doctrine occurred in 1990 with Judge Pierre N. Leval's influential article, "Toward a Fair Use Standard," which explicitly coined and advocated for "transformative use" as the central inquiry in analysis. Leval argued that should favor secondary works that, by altering the original with new expression, meaning, or message—such as through or —advance the constitutional purpose of to promote progress in science and the arts, rather than merely superseding the . This framework critiqued prior cases' overemphasis on commerciality and market harm, proposing instead a focus on whether the use justified itself by contributing fresh insights. Leval's terminology and test quickly gained traction among scholars and judges, bridging scattered pre-1990 precedents into a cohesive . The Supreme Court's 1994 decision in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. formalized transformative use as a pivotal element of fair use, explicitly adopting Leval's approach and marking a shift from fragmented, case-specific evaluations to a more predictable, purpose-driven analysis. In upholding 2 Live Crew's parody of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" as fair use despite its commercial nature, the Court emphasized that transformative works need only reasonably necessary copying to critique or comment on the original, weighing this against potential market effects but prioritizing expressive addition. This endorsement elevated transformative use from academic proposal to cornerstone doctrine, influencing subsequent jurisprudence by clarifying that such uses often outweigh presumptions against commercial exploitation.

Legal Framework

Supreme Court Precedents

The U.S. first articulated the concept of transformative use as a core element of the doctrine in Campbell v. , Inc. (1994), involving a parody of Roy Orbison's song "" by the rap group . The group released a song titled "" that mimicked the original's and opening but added humorous, sexually suggestive critiquing the original's romantic themes, leading to sue for . The , in an opinion by Souter, reversed the Sixth Circuit's ruling that the commercial nature of the parody presumptively barred , holding instead that a commercial parody can qualify as transformative if it adds significant new expression, meaning, or message by commenting on or criticizing the original work, thereby serving the purposes of criticism or commentary under 17 U.S.C. § 107. The Court emphasized that the first factor— and of the use—favors transformative works, and market harm must be actual rather than presumed from commerciality, provided the parody does not substitute for the original in the . The Court's transformative use analysis received significant refinement in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith (2023), which addressed whether 's silkscreen portraits derived from photographer Lynn Goldsmith's 1981 image of constituted . Warhol created a series of 16 works, including the "Orange Prince" used by for a 2016 commemorative issue under a licensing agreement, after Goldsmith's photo had been licensed to the in 1984. In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Sotomayor, the Court held that the Foundation's licensing of the Orange Prince to was not transformative, as it shared the same commercial purpose—depicting for a illustration—and did not convey a fundamentally different message or purpose from Goldsmith's original photograph, despite stylistic alterations like added color and abstraction. The ruling clarified that transformative use under the first factor requires examining the specific use at issue, not just the new work in isolation, and that mere differences in expression or style do not suffice if the new work competes in the same market for licensing similar depictions. Through these precedents, the has established that transformative use weighs heavily in the first factor, potentially justifying otherwise infringing copying by adding value through criticism, comment, or new without superseding 's market. In Campbell, the Court drew on Judge Pierre Leval's influential analysis of transformative works as those that alter with new or understanding, underscoring that such uses promote copyright's goal of fostering . The Warhol decision reinforced this by cautioning against an overly broad interpretation of transformative use that could undermine incentives for original authorship, emphasizing a balanced into and that considers commercial context.

Scholarly and Judicial Evolution

The concept of transformative use in doctrine was first articulated by Judge in his influential 1990 article, "Toward a Fair Use Standard." Leval proposed that should prioritize secondary works that add significant value to the original by providing criticism, comment, parody, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, thereby justifying limited appropriation without unduly harming the holder's incentives. He emphasized balancing the societal benefits of such transformative secondary uses against potential injury to the original author's market, arguing that mere reproduction or slight alteration does not qualify as transformative unless it alters the original with new expression, meaning, or message. This framework shifted analysis toward a more purposive evaluation under the first statutory factor, influencing subsequent judicial interpretations. Circuit courts have significantly shaped transformative use through , particularly in the Second and Ninth Circuits. In the Second Circuit, the 2013 decision in initially adopted a broad view, holding that a secondary work could be transformative if it employed the original with new expression, meaning, or message, even without direct commentary on the original. This approach expanded Leval's test to encompass artistic appropriations that altered the original's character or purpose. In contrast, the Ninth Circuit has often integrated transformative use with a strong emphasis on the fourth , assessing market harm more rigorously; for instance, it has required that transformative claims demonstrate minimal substitutionary effects on the original's potential . Following the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, which clarified that transformative use does not automatically favor commercial adaptations serving similar s to , lower courts have applied stricter to the and of secondary uses. As of 2025, this has included rejections of claims in training contexts where copying serves commercial purposes akin to , such as in Enterprise Centre GmbH v. ROSS Intelligence Inc. (D. Del. 2025). This evolution aligns with Leval's original balancing but imposes greater weight on avoiding unjustified commercial substitution. Scholarly debates since the 1994 Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. adoption of Leval's have critiqued and expanded its application, focusing on reconciling with . Early post-1994 analyses, such as those by Wendy Gordon, argued that transformative use risks overemphasizing secondary creators' interests at the expense of original incentives, proposing stricter limits on commercial transformations. More recent scholarship, including empirical studies by Jiarui Liu and others, has documented transformative use's dominance in litigation—appearing in about 90% of recent decisions and succeeding in over 90% of cases where upheld—while urging refinements to prevent it from undermining copyright's core protections. Commentators like Pamela Samuelson have advocated for a nuanced that balances , such as in digital remixes, with robust , emphasizing Leval's social benefit test without diluting market harm considerations.

Application in Fair Use

Role Within the Four Factors

The fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law, codified in 17 U.S.C. § 107, provides a defense to infringement by directing courts to consider four non-exclusive factors in determining whether a use qualifies as fair: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether it is commercial or nonprofit educational; (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. Transformative use plays a central role primarily within the first factor, which examines the and of the allegedly infringing use; the has described this inquiry as the "heart" of analysis, focusing on whether the new work adds something new with a further or different , altering the original with new expression, meaning, or message. Although the first factor considers whether the use is commercial or nonprofit, the transformative nature of a use can outweigh its commercial aspects, as commerciality is merely one element and not presumptively dispositive against . A strong finding of transformative use under the first often diminishes the weight given to the other three factors in the overall analysis. Specifically, it tends to minimize scrutiny of the third factor by justifying the taking of a greater amount or even the "heart" of the original work if necessary to achieve the transformative purpose, as the copying is viewed as reasonable relative to that new expression or meaning. Similarly, transformative use supports a favorable under the fourth factor by indicating minimal or no cognizable market harm to the original, since the new work serves a different purpose and does not act as a substitute, though courts must still evaluate any potential displacement of the original's market. The second , concerning the creative or factual nature of the original work, remains largely independent, with transformative use exerting limited direct influence, as it primarily probes the work's inherent protectability rather than the secondary user's alterations. In applying the fair use doctrine, courts weigh the four factors together holistically, without any one being dispositive, in light of copyright's overarching purposes to promote the progress of and useful ; however, a robust transformative use determination under the first frequently tips the balance toward by reducing the adverse implications of the remaining factors.

Criteria for Assessment

The assessment of transformative use primarily revolves around the and of the secondary use, which courts evaluate to determine if it adds a further or different to the original work, such as by incorporating elements for , , , or commentary that impart new expression, meaning, or message. This test, central to the first statutory , distinguishes productive uses that build upon the original from those that merely supersede it, emphasizing whether the secondary work employs the material in a different manner or for a different from the original. A key justification for transformative use, as articulated by Judge , requires that the secondary use provide social benefit by adding significant value to the original through meaningful , thereby advancing the constitutional aims of to promote creativity and public enrichment. This rejects mere technical alterations or superficial changes, such as simple repackaging or , insisting instead on substantive additions like new insights, , or that justify the use without undermining the incentives for original authorship. In considering the amount and substantiality of the portion used—a factor that intersects with transformativeness—courts apply both quantitative and qualitative analyses; even small portions can qualify as transformative if the core expressive elements are altered in a way that conveys new purpose or understanding, rather than replicating the essence of the original. Courts also assess whether the secondary use was conducted in , evaluating the defendant's intent and awareness of potential infringement, though this consideration carries limited weight and is not dispositive in the overall determination.

Key Examples

Parody and Commentary Cases

Lower courts have applied the Supreme Court's standards from Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. (1994), which recognized that parody can qualify as transformative fair use when it critiques or comments on the original work by adding new expression, meaning, or message. In Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co. (2001), the Eleventh Circuit held that Alice Randall's novel The Wind Done Gone constituted a transformative parody of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. The court reversed a preliminary injunction against the book's publication, finding that Randall's work retold the original story from the perspective of a slave, thereby critiquing its romanticized portrayal of the antebellum South and slavery. This satire added commentary on racial stereotypes and historical narratives, using substantial elements from the original but only to the extent necessary for effective criticism, without serving as a market substitute. The decision emphasized that such transformative uses promote free expression by challenging cultural icons, even in fictional form. The Second Circuit in Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp. (1998) ruled that an advertisement for the film Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult was a protected parody of photographer Annie Leibovitz's Vanity Fair cover featuring a pregnant Demi Moore in a classical pose. Paramount's ad replicated the pose with actor Leslie Nielsen superimposed on Moore's body but altered to show a chalk outline of a corpse, humorously associating the original's glamour with the movie's themes of comedy and mortality. The court found this use transformative because it mocked the stylistic seriousness of Leibovitz's photograph rather than the subject herself, employing minimal copying to evoke the original for satirical effect. Despite its commercial nature as an ad, the parody did not harm the market for the original image, as it targeted a different audience and purpose. These cases illustrate key holdings in parody and commentary applications: transformative uses succeed when they critique the original's message or style through added insight, employing only necessary portions, and avoiding direct competition in the .

Digital Reproduction and Search Cases

In the realm of digital technologies, transformative use has been pivotal in fair use analyses involving search engines, thumbnails, and other reproduction methods that facilitate information access without supplanting the original work's market. Courts have examined whether such uses add new functionality, such as indexing or searching, that serves a distinct purpose from the copyrighted material's initial intent. A landmark case establishing this principle is Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp., where the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Arriba Soft's creation and display of versions of photographer Leslie Kelly's images in its visual search engine constituted . The court reasoned that the thumbnails served an informational purpose by acting as a visual index to aid users in locating images online, transforming the originals—which were created for aesthetic appreciation—into a tool for efficient navigation without competing in the market for high-resolution copies. This use was deemed highly transformative under the first factor, despite being commercial, as it provided significant public benefit by improving access to dispersed content. The full-size inline-linked images, however, were not protected as because they directly reproduced the originals without alteration, potentially harming Kelly's licensing market. Building on , the Ninth Circuit in Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. extended transformative use protection to Google's image search thumbnails of Perfect 10's copyrighted photographs. The emphasized that Google's thumbnails functioned primarily to and direct users to original sources, adding expressive through the search engine's organizational purpose rather than substituting for Perfect 10's aesthetic works. This transformative character outweighed the commercial nature of the use and any minimal , as thumbnails were low-resolution and linked back to licensed sites, thereby enhancing rather than detracting from the original market. to full-size images raised separate infringement issues but did not undermine the finding for thumbnails. The Second Circuit's decision in Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc. further solidified transformative use in contexts by affirming Google's project, which scanned millions of copyrighted to enable functionality. Although the denied in 2016, the 2015 appellate ruling held that Google's creation of a searchable was transformative because it provided users with tools to identify and locate relevant —such as word counts or contextual snippets—without offering substitutes for reading the full texts. This use augmented public knowledge by facilitating research and scholarship, with limited snippet displays ensuring no significant market harm to book sales or licensing. The court noted that copying entire works was reasonably necessary for effective indexing, distinguishing it from mere . In contrast, cases involving pop-ups and framing often fail the transformative test when they supersede the original display without adding new purpose. For instance, in , the Ninth Circuit rejected for Arriba's inline framing of full-size images, as it merely republished the works in their original form, serving the same aesthetic function and potentially diverting viewers from Kelly's site. Similarly, temporary pop-up displays in unauthorized contexts, such as unsolicited advertisements overlaying copyrighted content, have been deemed non-transformative if they exploit the original without informational enhancement, as seen in related Ninth Circuit analyses of framing technologies that prioritize commercial supersession over search utility. These rulings underscore that digital aids must provide distinct functionality, like indexing, to qualify as transformative. Pre-2015, a perceived emerged between the Ninth and Second s on evaluating transformative use in reproductions for search engines. The Ninth adopted a more permissive "productive use" approach in Kelly and Perfect 10, emphasizing public benefits from thumbnails and indexing even in commercial settings, which broadened for technological innovations. In contrast, the Second applied a stricter in cases like American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc. (1994), focusing on whether photocopies added significant new expression or merely facilitated convenience for research archiving, potentially limiting for reproductions without clear scholarly . This divergence highlighted tensions in adapting to emerging tools until Authors Guild aligned the circuits toward recognizing search functionalities as transformative.

AI and Generative Technology Cases

In recent years, transformative use doctrine has been central to lawsuits challenging the use of copyrighted materials in training generative AI models. A prominent example is Andersen v. Stability AI, filed in January 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by visual artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz against Stability AI, Midjourney, and related entities. The plaintiffs allege that defendants infringed copyrights by scraping and training AI image generators, such as Stable Diffusion, on billions of copyrighted images from datasets like LAION-5B without permission, claiming this process is not transformative because the models can produce outputs that mimic the artists' distinctive styles and compositions. As of November 2025, the case remains ongoing, with fact discovery closing in November 2025 and trial scheduled for September 2026; the court earlier denied motions to strike class allegations and dismiss certain claims, while defendants assert fair use on grounds that the training creates new expressive capabilities rather than superseding originals. Similarly, The New York Times Company v. OpenAI and Microsoft, initiated in December 2023 in the Southern District of New York, contests the use of millions of the newspaper's articles to train large language models like ChatGPT. The complaint argues that this ingestion copies verbatim content without meaningful transformation, enabling the AI to regurgitate or summarize articles in ways that harm the market for original journalism. Defendants counter that the training process is analogous to the transformative indexing in Authors Guild v. Google (the Google Books case), where scanning books for search functionality was deemed fair use, and that outputs add new utility without direct replication. Following the March 2025 denial of OpenAI's motion to dismiss, as of November 2025, discovery advances with a contested November 7 order requiring production of 20 million de-identified ChatGPT logs, expert reports due November 14, and summary judgment scheduled for April 2026. The U.S. Copyright Office has provided key guidance through its 2025 report on generative training, released in May as Part 3 of its multi-part study on and artificial intelligence. The report concludes that using copyrighted works for AI training implicates exclusive rights of and creation of works but requires a case-by-case analysis, without presuming fair use for all such activities. Transformative training—such as learning stylistic elements to generate novel outputs in new contexts—may qualify as fair use under the first factor if it adds significant expression or utility, whereas direct replication or outputs that closely imitate originals do not. The Office highlights that commercial scale and market harm remain critical, urging licensing where feasible to avoid litigation. Several 2025 judicial decisions have applied heightened scrutiny to AI outputs in light of the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, which narrowed transformative use for commercial works serving similar markets. In Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Northern District of California, June 2025), Judge William Alsup granted partial summary judgment for the defendant, finding training on pirated books "exceedingly transformative" as input but emphasizing that commercial AI outputs generating text in the same literary markets must demonstrate added commentary or criticism to avoid supplanting originals; the case settled for $1.5 billion on September 5, 2025, addressing pirated inputs. Similarly, in Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (Northern District of California, June 25, 2025), the court dismissed the lawsuit, finding AI training on copyrighted works—including for Llama models—fair use under all factors, as it did not supplant the market for originals even post-Warhol, a complete win for Meta on both ingestion and outputs. These decisions signal that while training data ingestion often leans toward fair use if non-expressive, outputs face stricter review for market substitution, with settlements and dismissals shaping emerging standards. Emerging standards in copyright increasingly distinguish between input and output . Courts and the Copyright Office recognize that ingesting works as training data can be potentially transformative if it enables creation of new expressions without retaining copies of originals, akin to intermediate in software cases. However, output requires evidence of added human-like expression or purpose beyond mere replication, with more likely when outputs critique, parody, or apply inputs to dissimilar contexts rather than serving the same commercial audience. This underscores that transformative value must be assessed holistically across factors, prioritizing non-substitutive .

Contemporary Developments

Criticisms and Limitations

The doctrine of transformative use within has faced significant criticism for its inherent subjectivity, particularly following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. (2023), where the Court emphasized an objective inquiry into the purpose and character of the use but left room for interpretive vagueness in assessing whether a work adds "new expression, meaning, or message." Critics argue that this "added meaning" test remains elusive, as courts must evaluate degrees of difference in purpose—a matter often described as subjective and leading to unpredictable outcomes across cases, with no clear for sufficient transformation. For instance, the Court's framing of transformativeness as a "matter of degree" has been faulted for complicating determinations, potentially chilling creative endeavors due to inconsistent judicial applications. Despite the landmark ruling in (1994), which held that commercial nature alone does not presume unfair use, transformative use continues to exhibit a commercial bias, subjecting for-profit applications to heightened scrutiny under the first factor. Post-Warhol, courts have increasingly weighed commercial licensing markets against transformative claims, often disadvantaging innovative enterprises that repurpose works for profit without clear non-substitutive purposes, even when adding new value. This bias persists because commercial uses are presumed to impact the original's market, narrowing the doctrine's applicability to non-commercial or educational contexts and hindering for-profit advancements in fields like . Concerns over the doctrine's overbreadth have intensified with the rise of generative , where claims of transformative use for models on vast datasets risk undermining creators' incentives by enabling unauthorized scraping that competes with originals. Artists and authors have widely complained that firms' mass ingestion of copyrighted works without permission or compensation devalues human creativity, as models encode stylistic elements to produce derivative outputs that erode market opportunities and licensing revenue. For example, over 50,000 creatives, as of November 2025, signed a condemning such practices as a "major, unjust threat" to livelihoods, highlighting how expansive transformative interpretations could flood markets with -generated substitutes, discouraging original production. The transformative use doctrine's limitations are further evident in its U.S.-centric framework, which prioritizes economic rights under 17 U.S.C. § 107 but offers limited guidance for protections or international regimes that emphasize attribution and integrity. The U.S. Copyright Office's 2025 report on generative training critiques these gaps, noting that while uses may be transformative in contexts, commercial applications often fail tests due to market harm, yet the doctrine provides no categorical resolution for unlicensed training, contrasting with global approaches like the EU's text-and-data-mining exceptions. This parochial scope leaves unresolved tensions with international treaties, such as the Berne Convention's three-step test, potentially restricting cross-border innovations.

Recent Policy and International Perspectives

In 2025, the U.S. Copyright Office released Part 3 of its report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, focusing on the use of copyrighted works in generative AI training processes. The report examines whether such training constitutes fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act, particularly emphasizing the transformative use factor, but concludes that AI training is not inherently transformative simply because it serves non-expressive purposes like model development. Instead, it proposes case-by-case frameworks to assess transformative claims for training data, rejecting blanket exemptions and recommending licensing where appropriate to balance innovation with copyright protection. Legislative efforts in and 2025 have also addressed -related copyright issues, with bills like the NO FAKES Act influencing transformative use claims. Introduced in the 118th as S.4875 in 2024 and reintroduced in the 119th as S.1367 and H.R.2794 in 2025, the act aims to protect individuals' rights against unauthorized digital replicas of their voice, image, or likeness created by , establishing civil remedies for such deepfakes. While not directly targeting transformative use doctrine, it indirectly impacts defenses by imposing stricter liability on -generated content that mimics originals, potentially complicating claims of transformation in derivative works. Internationally, transformative use contrasts sharply with more prescriptive copyright exceptions, as seen in the European Union's Directive 2019/790 on Copyright in the . This directive provides specific, limited exceptions for text and (TDM) under Articles 3 and 4: Article 3 mandates an exception for scientific research purposes, allowing reproduction and analysis of works without requiring a transformative purpose, while Article 4 permits member states to opt into a broader TDM exception for commercial activities, subject to rights holder reservations. Unlike U.S. , these provisions do not hinge on transformative nature but are narrowly tailored and do not extend to general creative reuse. The for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, administered by the (WIPO), further underscores this divergence by lacking any equivalent to or transformative use, instead permitting limitations and exceptions only under the three-step test in Article 9(2). This test requires exceptions to be confined to , not conflict with normal exploitation, and not unreasonably prejudice legitimate interests, offering no broad doctrinal flexibility for transformative claims. Global debates on harmonizing exceptions akin to transformative use have intensified at WIPO, particularly in 2025 sessions of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR). During the SCCR/46 meeting in 2025, discussions addressed copyright challenges in generative training, exploring whether frameworks could incorporate flexible exceptions for and applications while adhering to the , with calls for balanced approaches to foster innovation without undermining creators' rights.