Questions about morphing digital images together into something new

[Lorendiac]

Last year I bought a piece of software which allows me to choose two photos and set the software to "morph" one into the other in a series of small steps. I need to plant "anchor points" at each spot on Photo A which is meant to gradually be transformed into the matching spot on Photo B. If I take, for instance, two digital photos of beautiful women seen from about the same angle, and click to set up pairs of corresponding "anchor points" between the two pictures, I can create a video that seems to show one person's face gradually changing into another's.

After I had just bought the software, I spent a lot of time playing with it, creating transformations of one face to another.

What I'm wondering is: If I stop the video in the middle of the morphing process, and save that frame as a digital "photo" of its own, is the result a "derivative work" which simultaneously falls under the umbrella of the copyright on Photo A and the copyright on Photo B? Or, since the current face on the screen is not blatantly a near-copy of A or B, could it qualify as an "original work" on which I can claim copyright ownership myself?

A follow-up question: Suppose I have a "morphed photo" which blends Faces A and B, and another "morphed photo" which blends Faces C and D (from four separate digital images, each presumably owned by a different person or corporation), and then suppose I use the morphing software once again to take those two images and create a new image of a woman's face which might be called "a projection of what a girl would grow up to look like if genes from all four of those real women had been spliced together in a test tube." At this point, the image on my screen has only faint traces of a resemblance to any one of the four models. Is it a "derivative" or "original" work? Could I distribute copies of it without violating anyone else's intellectual property rights?

 

[quincy]

Last year I bought a piece of software which allows me to choose two photos and set the software to "morph" one into the other in a series of small steps. I need to plant "anchor points" at each spot on Photo A which is meant to gradually be transformed into the matching spot on Photo B. If I take, for instance, two digital photos of beautiful women seen from about the same angle, and click to set up pairs of corresponding "anchor points" between the two pictures, I can create a video that seems to show one person's face gradually changing into another's.

After I had just bought the software, I spent a lot of time playing with it, creating transformations of one face to another.

What I'm wondering is: If I stop the video in the middle of the morphing process, and save that frame as a digital "photo" of its own, is the result a "derivative work" which simultaneously falls under the umbrella of the copyright on Photo A and the copyright on Photo B? Or, since the current face on the screen is not blatantly a near-copy of A or B, could it qualify as an "original work" on which I can claim copyright ownership myself?

A follow-up question: Suppose I have a "morphed photo" which blends Faces A and B, and another "morphed photo" which blends Faces C and D (from four separate digital images, each presumably owned by a different person or corporation), and then suppose I use the morphing software once again to take those two images and create a new image of a woman's face which might be called "a projection of what a girl would grow up to look like if genes from all four of those real women had been spliced together in a test tube." At this point, the image on my screen has only faint traces of a resemblance to any one of the four models. Is it a "derivative" or "original" work? Could I distribute copies of it without violating anyone else's intellectual property rights?

Lorendiac, what is the name of your state or, if not in the U.S., what is the name of your country? Laws vary in significant ways between countries. This site handles U.S. law questions and concerns only. The following applies to the U.S.

You have asked some good questions.

What first needs to be asked is where photos A, B, C and D are coming from? If you have to copy other photographers' photos to create your morphed faces, that in itself is infringement.

If we skip over that then, next, the photos being used would need to be examined for unique elements. These unique elements might come from the colors used, backgrounds, clothing, whatever. If the resulting "half way" photo displays elements that can be seen as unique to one of the originals from which it morphed, it might be looked at as a derivative of the original (with the right to make derivatives an exclusive right of the copyright holder).

If there are no elements that can found unique enough to one of the originals that it marks the half way photo as a derivative of the original, and the resulting half-way image bears little resemblance to any of the original images, then it could probably be looked at as a transformative work (which is not infringing) rather than a derivative (which would be).

Assuming the resulting image can be looked at as original and creative enough to meet the minimum requirements for a copyright, and if the resulting image can be viewed as a transformative work rather than a derivative, then a copyright in this new work could be registered.

All depends on the specifics, though, and I am not sure that any court has addressed morphed images from a copyright perspective yet (I know morphed images have played a central role in other types of cases). At any rate, if there has been a copyright suit over morphed images, I am unaware of it.