Is it legal to show an album on a Youtube Video?

Well if you have tried contacting them and aren't playing the actual content only promoting albums then you could try the asking for forgiveness tactic.

• write an email saying "can I do X, please tell me if it's an issue, I intend to start on Y date" ... Thus they know
• continue on as stated, if they ask resend the email with the date.

BUT ensure your not crossing copyright directly with a lawyer first ... If you know one the cheapest way is to clarify it over lunch or a drink or two.

IANAL but the album cover should fall under fair use guidelines. Specifically, it does not infringe upon the copyright holder's abilities (in fact you can easily argue the opposite). Indeed, your usage would be a "fair and reasonable criticism".

That said, while fair use is an affirmative defense against a copyright infringement suit, it does not prevent YouTube from taking these videos down or the copyright holder from bringing a suit, should they wish.

The problem with copyright law is that no one really knows the answer to these kinds of questions. This falls under the ambiguous concept of fair use and "fair" is in the eye of the beholder. The only way to know for certain is to get sued and see what the judge and jury think.

That said, I see very little risk here. First, because the worst thing that happens is your video gets removed; second, I see very little risk of someone complaining about what your are doing; and third, if someone did complain, you have a strong argument that what you are doing is fair use.

The most important factor in determining whether something is a fair use is whether your use will commercially undermine the value of the work to the owner. You are not undermining the commercial value of the work because people don't sell album covers; they sell the music on the album.

You showing the album cover on your video is not going to prevent anyone from buying the album. Even if the album cover had some value on its own, you are showing it briefly in low resolution on video. No one is going to freeze frame the video, crop the album cover, and print it out as a replacement for the original album cover. They can easily find a better copy of the album cover online.

Since you are promoting music and encouraging people to buy it, I don't see the record companies complaining about this.

So I would say go for it, and don't bother asking Google, as it is too busy to respond to these kinds of questions.

Are you are planning on playing snippets (e.g., 10-30 seconds) of music on the album as well? That should also qualify as fair use, but there is a higher risk that the record companies could complain.

Just today our YouTube partnership application got approved. Before you get started showing ads, you have to agree to their terms. They are very particular about any kind of "borrowed" content be it music, images, a 5 sec clip of 3rd party video, lyrics of a song written by someone else even if you give attribution. The content should be solely created by you or you should have 100% rights for the content.

Bottom line is -

If you think your content may be violating YouTube's content, it is.

These terms are applicable for YouTube partner videos though. I think they have relaxed rules for normal youTube videos. You can find many videos -uploaded by fans- with famous songs having 100K+ views and are not being removed by YT.

As for your specific case, in my opinion, it may not qualify for partnership program but as others suggested you can always ask them. (expect a delayed response though). All the best!