What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Michigan
A daycare worker began posting pictures (Twitter) of her with my 11 year old son stating they were in a dating relationship. The daycare administrators say there is nothing they can do since they aren't sexually related.
It is not true what the daycare administrators told you, if in fact they told you there was nothing they could do. They must report any known or suspected child abuse to the State. They can (and possibly should) fire their daycare worker. A link to MDHHS on reporting requirements:
http://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/0,5885,7-339-73971_7119_50648_44443-157836--,00.html
You should have, upon first learning of the Twitter pictures, removed your child from the daycare and reported the Twitter postings to both the daycare administrators AND the police. I hope you did all of this.
I have photoshopped screenshots of the pictures to hide identity and want to include them online reviews of the daycare. Would this be legal since I didn't take the pictures? She and my son are the only people in the pictures. All identities in picture and text are hidden.
Writing a review of the daycare should be your very last concern. You do not want to state or imply anything that is not provably true. You probably need more than the text that accompanied the photo to show that the daycare worker did anything improper before writing about the daycare worker and daycare. In other words, there might be a logical explanation for the captioning (although I certainly can't think of any offhand other than the stupidity of the daycare worker).
The copyrights in a photograph are not lost by photoshopping. The photoshopping of a photo would be considered a derivative of the original. Creating derivatives is the exclusive right of the creator of the original photograph/the copyright holder. To use anyone else's copyrighted photograph, you need their permission.
A generic photograph of the daycare itself could be used to illustrate a review. Personal photographs belonging to others should not be used.
The identities of people in a photo can often be discerned through more than faces. Removing faces and text, therefore, is probably not enough to hide the identity of the daycare worker and your son. If any one person can identify who is in the photograph, you open yourself up to possible legal actions - this if your use of the photo didn't already violate copyright law.
Again, report the daycare worker to the police after removing your child from the daycare, if you have not done so already.
