Here is an excerpt from a publication by Stanford University relating to the "fair use" exception under US copyright laws.
Often, it's difficult to know whether a court will consider a proposed use to be fair. The fair use statute requires the courts to consider the following questions in deciding this issue:
- Is it a competitive use? (In other words, if the use potentially affects the sales of the copied material, it's usually not fair.)
- How much material was taken compared to the entire work of which the material was a part? (The more someone takes, the less likely it is that the use is fair.)
- How was the material used? Is it a transformative use? (If the material was used to help create something new it is more likely to be considered a fair use that if it is merely copied verbatim into another work. Criticism, comment, news reporting, research, scholarship and non-profit educational uses are most likely to be judged fair uses. Uses motivated primarily by a desire for a commercial gain are less likely to be fair use).
As a general rule, if you are using a small portion of somebody else's work in a non-competitive way and the purpose for your use is to benefit the public, you're on pretty safe ground. On the other hand, if you take large portions of someone else's expression for your own purely commercial reasons, the rule usually won't apply.
I read this summary of the "fair use" doctrine, and feel comfortable with the OnTheDash "Gallery of Fakes". Yes -- OnTheDash is linked to Chronocentric (which has the Chronotrader Sales Froum), but that would not make the use of these photos a "commercial use".
for anyone who may be interested, the link below will take you to the full article.
by the way -- still no reply from the seller.
Jeff