Copyright Q and software to make movies or animated jpgs

Factual Questions
1

The goal:
I want to make either an animated jpg, or some sort of short movie of a bunch of different pics. I will be merging two different images together in photoshop in various different amounts of transparency. I am trying to show just how scary/cool google earth is.

The questions:
1.) For each combo, one of the pictures I will be using is a screen shot from Google Earth, and is, of course, ©. Thus far, I do not have any kind of consent from them to use said image. (Maybe I’ll fire off an email; they might find this interesting.) Is this concept legal? (fair use, maybe)?

2.) Software. Short of running a slideshow from windows pic viewer, any advice for free software to make a movie from a series of images?

The reward:
If both answers are satisfactory, I’ll find some way to post the results. They are some neat images from my trips to the White Mountains (NH) and the duplicate images from Google Earth. I am impressed with how similar they are. (And the Whites are a low resolution area.)

2

From the Google Earth license agreement, emphasis mine:

Oddly, though, they do allow people to access the Google Maps API and produce derivative works using that data.

I suppose you could follow up with them and see if they have the time to read your request.

IANAL.

3

There is no such thing as an animated jpeg. You can make an animated gif, or use a video format like mpeg. If it’s small and with a limited amount of colours I recommend gif. There are a lot of programs for making those. If you want larger photos you should use a compressed video format but those get pretty big (filesize) anyway so you can’t have them as large (physical) as you might like. Not really doing a lot of video stuff, I can’t name any editing programs off the top of my head but once again there are some. There are probably some programs dedicated to making slideshows too but you gotta decide what you want first.

4

To make a slideshow out of a series of images, I have used SSMM before. The interface takes a little getting used to, but once you crack that, it’s all very simple. You can specify the number of frames that each image will appear for; either individually or en bloc.

5

There is a video codec called MJPEG, which stores the frames as a series of discrete jpgs, but unlike an animated gif, it’s a movie, not an image.

6

You could download the free trial version of Corel (formerly Jasc) Animation Shop 3. It lets you make movies out of individual frames and then it saves the movie to an AVI or animated GIF. You can then convert the AVI to any movie format you want (DivX, WMV, QuickTime, whatever) with third-party encoders.

AS3 also comes with some blending effects which may be of some help (they basically transition from one image to another).

In conjunction with AS3, you may also want to try the free SmartMorph program. It was designed for faces, but it should work with any two pictures as long as they share some similarities.

7

[montyburnsvoice] Eehhchsellent [/montyburnsvoice]

In thinking more about it, I should have asked about something like a morphing software. Thanks, Reply! I’ll download that once I get home.

So, that takes care of question 2. What about question 1. Would ‘fair use’ supercede the licensing agreement? (I know, I know: the ‘legal-est’ way is permission from them. I’ll draft and send an email when I get home, too.)

8

IANYL, this is not legal advice, you are not my client, yada yada yada, standard disclaimers apply.

You may be able to claim a fair use exemption from prosecution if the work you are creating is for your own personal use and is non-commercial (i.e. largely meaning that you don’t make any money off of it). In law school we learned a four prong test, but it’s not standard, and I’ve seen cases look at as much as 8 criteria, but despite what test you are using, the decision as to whether you are infringing someone’s copyright ultimately centers on what the use is for and if you’re making any money off of it.

A super-quick something that I wouldn’t normally charge for search is best stated as an example here. The four questions that are asked is what I would call the classic test for fair use. Notice how they answer the questions relevant to their own use. Also, notice that the last question, the affect on the market place, is the most significant of the criteria.

9

Thing is, though, as mazinger_z’s post suggests, the question is not just what Google happens to say, but whether the OP’s use of the images from Google Earth fulfills the criteria for Fair Use. It may, and it may not, depending on exactly what the final product looks like and how much use it makes of the images from Google Earth.

I have a friend who does political artwork that often uses copyrighted images, but he changes them enough, and places them in such a different context, that it would be virtually impossible to argue that he is infringing on the copyright holder’s rights. He has been advised on these issues by art galleries and copyright lawyers.

I’d add one caveat to mazinger_z’s observation, though. It is not just a question of whether you make money from it. It is, in fact, possible to make money from a derivative work, as long as it meets all the criteria for Fair Use. The key monetary test, as part 4 of the link shows, is what effect the new work has on the market for the original work.

10

Thanks for the response, mazinger_z. That’s kinda what I understood. (but I didn’t have the link - thanks again!).

So, basically, if I were giving a seminar on how scary/cool Google Earth was, and I didn’t give out handouts, but used the image in a slideshow, it’s almost a gimmie that the use would be legal. If, however, I make the image available on the internet, that’s not so cut and dry, and might pose a problem.

So, dang. I can make the images for myself, for my own amusement, but I can’t show you guys, unless I can get an agreement with Google. Kind what I was afraid of. If I can get an agreement, I will make sure that somehow, you guys can see the images / movies, because I think it’s pretty darn cool.

Thanks again to all who responded with info / links.

-Geek

11

heh, that might be interesting. Personally, I think the results of my work make Google Earth look better. They show just how accurate their info is.

I think I am in a grey area that I could define my way. But, any lawyers from GE could define their way, and I don’t want a legal fight. (Just not worth my time.) I think that permission first is the way to go this time.