avatar and copyright images

  I've recently learned that it's not ok to post sheet music or tabs of published songs due to copyright law.  That got me thinking, what about copyright images people use for their avatars?  I only use concert photos I've taken myself for my avatars, but it seems using band photos or album covers people find online is pretty common.  Is that also a copyright problem?  Is it safe to use album cover artwork or band photos that were included in an album because they're public domain?  How about when people cut and paste album cover images into the body of their forum posts? 

Any thoughts appreciated,

Dennis 

 

Reprinting the entire lyric is not fair use, quoting a part of the lyric is fair use. What proportion of the entire lyric constitutes a fair use quotation is open to debate and conjecture, but arguing for more than 50% would be hard to justify.

 

Using a thumbnail vignette of an album cover can be considered to be fair use.

 

Copyright infringement usually centres around "profit" - either by using the copyrighted material for personal gain, or by depriving the copyright owner of any payment or royalties due.

I guess that people using your band logo or album cover as avatar is more a beneficial publicity than a harm, isn't it?

Posting pictures is something else, I can see why a photographer might be unhappy is some of his copyrighted pics are being posted in decent resolution without permission since they could then be copied and spread around. But I am not aware that this has ever happened, generally people will post pics they have found elsewhere in the net or taken themselves.