From a purely legal (and moral) standpoint based on U.S. laws, you would need permission. Putting a disclaimer about not trying to claim copyright really doesn't hold any water. Bottom line: If someone creates a piece of work, like a photograph, they are the ones that get to decided how it's used.
In practical terms, you may get away with it (at least for a time) if you are earning nothing from it, but the copyright owners could still C&D you. If you have any sort of affiliate links or other ways of earning money from the blog, then all bets are off as there's now financial gain involved and that makes it worth more to come after you.
There are some fair use exceptions to copyrights in the U.S. Depending on how you go about the blog, there may be a way that covers you, but it's often a grey area. For example, one legit use is the news exemption. You may use copywrited works in a news blog, so long as you are covering news about that specific work. You could not use that work tangentially about a related news story. In the case of your blog, you could do a news piece about a specific photo of the Galaxy Fold controversy, describing how a reviewer may or may not have caused that damage in their specific photo. You could not use that photo to talk about the controversy in general.
If you are unable to take your own photos, you may want to consider buying some from a stock photo site. Getty Images and Shutter Stock are a couple of the best known, but there are others. You can buy legal rights to use those photos in your blog, so long as you agree to the licence terms with the purchase.
04-23-2019 08:00 PM
