I have a question about album art. What exactly legally constitutes an image you can and can’t use for an album cover? It will be available on bandcamp for “Name your price”. I just don’t want to receive a cease and desist by some company for using image I found on google and slapping our logo on it. If something like that is illegal, are there any databases of free images that can be legally reproduced/altered for free?

if you have a question about it. Don't do it.

You can always look up images on Google, but you have to make sure they're free for any type of use.

Use the Google Advanced Image Search (https://www.google.com/advanced_image_search), type the words or tags you want it to search, select all the options you want and, on the "usage rights" option you have to select "free to use, share or modify, even commercially". You should be able to use any image you find using this tool without any repercussion.

Good luck.

In these sorts of cases you can only use images in which you have created/ taken yourself or sort permission to use. If it is someone else's image ypu want to use then it is their image and you don't have the right to use it as they could take legal action against you.

https://www.pexels.com/

All images are CC0, meaning that you can use it for any legal purposes.

Re-using someone else's artwork as your own is lame (I don't care how respectable your band or music is)

If you want any legitimacy to your music please commission an artist to do a cover for you

Even if you're on a budget there are plenty of great artists from places like Indonesia, the Philippines & Russia who do amazing work for prices ranging from $50-$100 USD