Use of Images in a book
<p>Concerning modification of a photograph. is cropping a section of a photograph considered modification of the picture?
That I can then use commercially?
 our is it the adding something into the picture referring to modification?</p>

<p>Cropping a section of a photograph would be a modification, but "modification" doesn't give you the right to commercially use someone else's copyrighted work.</p>

<p>There is an exception for "fair use," which includes "transformative uses," but cropping one person out of a portrait would probably not be considered transformative, nor would photoshopping a missing family member into a photo. In both cases, you're just going from use as a portrait to another use as a portrait.</p>

<p>The changes needed to achieve fair use are qualitative, not quantitative. They cannot be definitively measured in percentages or additions or subtractions; the question is whether you've transformed the picture into something new.</p>

<p>For an example, you may want to read <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1628843.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Cariou v. Prince</em>, 714 F.3d 694 (2d Cir. 2013)</a>, which involved a an artist "taking photographs and other images that others have produced and incorporating them into paintings and collages that he then presents, in a different context, as his own." In some cases, there were very large changes, and in others, the changes were relatively minimal. </p>

<p>The court said that some of the uses were definitely fair use, but it said others were too close to call and sent it back to a lower court to do more analysis.</p>

<p>For your purposes, though, the key takeaway is that transformative use goes further than making a "modification" and turns the original work into something new with a message meaningfully different than that of the original.</p>

fair-use