Majority Opinion: "We do not presently wish to venture an opinion on how this person died, but we can say authoritatively that the accused was not at the location the death took place at the time it took place. Therefore, even if a murder took place, the accused is innocent of murder"
Thomas' Dissent: "We can not decide the person is innocent of murder unless we decide whether a murder took place or not. Further, here are all the reasons I think the accused murdered the victim."
Majority Opinion: "We assume for the sake of argument that the deceased was murdered; we then argue that the accused did not do it, and rule that the accused is innocent."
Thomas's Dissent: "The facts of the case that support a conclusion that the deceased was murdered also support a conclusion that the accused did it. So if you are assuming that the deceased was murdered, you should also conclude that the accused is guilty."
The thing is that fair use is a defense to infringement -- so saying this is fair use implies they would have been infringing if not for that factor.
"I didn't commit murder at all" doesn't have the same relationship to some hypothetical murder, rather it's claiming there's no link there at all.
The analysis does feel like it puts the cart before the horse and possibly ends up implying or easily being argued as implying a statement I think they were trying to avoid opining on absent developments in the lower courts.
I get why they would do that, but it doesn't make it less strange and I would worry that this could be analyzed to say, in effect, that APIs should all be subject to copyright.
It wouldn't even be the first time a Supreme Court ruling one way on IP had been turned on its head, either. That has happened a lot with software patents, for example.
Majority Opinion: "We do not presently wish to venture an opinion on how this person died, but we can say authoritatively that the accused was not at the location the death took place at the time it took place. Therefore, even if a murder took place, the accused is innocent of murder"
Thomas' Dissent: "We can not decide the person is innocent of murder unless we decide whether a murder took place or not. Further, here are all the reasons I think the accused murdered the victim."