Q: Someone took a photo of me off my facebook and cropped it to show just me and posted it on a website, is that copyright?
Can I file a DMCA to get it taken down, or will that backfire since it is cropped. It was posted with defamatory content, but I just want the picture gone at best.
A:
Did you take the photograph? The holder of the copyright in a photo is the person who actually took the picture, or a licensee/transferee of the copyright. As such, any claim would have to be made by the actual copyright holder. Meanwhile, using a portion of a copyrighted work (cropping it down to a smaller part of the overall picture in this case) is still copyright infringement, assuming that there are no fair use exceptions. Now, there are an awful lot of fair use exceptions out there, so you should really look into those or consult with an attorney to help with getting this content taken down. You might stand a better chance of success if you make both the copyright and defamation arguments together.
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