Google Images Copyright Infringement?

[Deasach]

Hi!

I'm not sure if this question comes into your area of expertise but I'm about to self-publish an ebook, and created my own cover using photoshop and Flash CS3. Although it started off as a drawing, I used a collage of google images to turn my drawing into a more realistic image(creating a robotic hand out of car pieces and futuristic android artwork on google, and also using a glass jar from one image, and a bee from another). As a whole the resulting collage is completely different from the original images, but I was wondering if any of this would count as copyright infringement?

Thanks!

Juliette

[Abrao]

As far as I understand Google images, you may infringe copyrights by using them. Generally speaking you are not allowed to use copyrighted images, even if you change them. In fact, by changing an image in a way the copyright owner would not agree with, you infringe the "moral right" of the copyright owner, which is a strong right that never expires. So, although I am not really a copyright expert, and certainly not an expert in US copyright, I am quite certain that this answer is correct. In other words:

If any of the images you want to use can still be recognized by the copyright owner, I would not use them without permission. But if even the copyright owner would not recognize the pictures in the form you want to use them, there is no infringement in my opinion.

Rene Hasekamp.