Image rights still apply even if faces swapped: court

The Seoul Central District Court said Sunday that the unauthorized use of a photograph still violated the model’s rights to his image, even though his face in the photo had been digitally replaced with that of another model.

The court ordered the accused to pay the model 1 million won ($938) in compensation.

According to the court, the accused, an online lecture programming company, downloaded a photograph of the plaintiff, a French model, wearing a T-shirt saying “foreigner” in Korean in March 2012.

The company then replaced the model’s face with that of another Caucasian model wearing sunglasses. Then they used the photograph for an online commercial on major portal websites in May 2012.

Although the company purchased the second model’s photograph, the court ruled that the company’s unauthorized use of the French model’s photograph violated his rights.

The court said, “Though the face was replaced with different model, rest part the photograph, which includes his body wearing T-shirt and his hairstyle, was clear enough that the model could be recognized.”

“The fact that they replaced the face with a Caucasian model also made it too easy to confuse the model as him.”

In the first trial, the court said the face in the photograph belonged to a different person and did not therefore constitute an unauthorized use of the plaintiff’s identity.

By Kim Da-sol, Intern reporter
(dasolkim@heraldcorp.com)