Image:JimmyDeanalbum.jpg

Album cover

Derived from a scan of the album cover (creator of this digital version is irrelevant as the copyright in all equivalent images is still held by the same party) Copyright held by the record company or the artist. Claimed as fair use regardless.

Jimmy Dean

Entire front cover, but does not include back or insides of original artwork or audio content on the album

Is only as much resolution is necessary to identify and show the style of artwork used for the article, not enough to be used for piracy. The copy of the image is low-resolution and will not produce high-quality copies of the art for illegal duplication. The quality is high enough to clearly present the image and to place the subject represented by the image in a good light.

The image is used as the most appropriate way to illustrate the artist in his most notable period, and his image as merchandised, by showing a characteristic album cover of the time. It thus makes a significant contribution to the user's understanding of the article, which could not practically be conveyed by words alone. Use for this purpose does not compete with the purposes of the original artwork, namely the artist's providing graphic design services to music concerns and in turn marketing music to the public.

As musical cover art, the image is not replaceable by free content; any other image that shows the packaging of the music would also be copyrighted, and any version that is not true to the original would be inadequate for identification or commentary. In its other role, as an image of the artist in his heyday, it could perhaps be replaced by another type of image, if such an image could be found.

Image in this form is already widely distributed to identify the album as part of catalogs and reviews, so we degrade no market value by providing it ourselves. Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws for the reasons above and because:

1. It is a low resolution copy of an album cover, a small portion of the commercial product, and serves as an easily identifiable part of a larger entity.
2. The use of the cover will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original album, and may even increase the potential for the copyright owner to gain from the image.
3. The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of topics in the article. For an article about an album or artist, the cover artwork is very important and adds significantly to the educational article.