Even if something is on the net, that doesn't mean that it is free for all to use, and the fact that it happens a lot doesn't actually make it legal. There's such a thing as intellectual copyright. Someone, for instance, once nicked a few sentences of mine and plonked them on a Wikipedia entry with no courtesy or by your leave. Wikipedia take intellectual copyright very seriously, and instantly removed the copy when I pointed out what had been done. In the case of the Nick Drake article, presumably the newspaper and the author concerned would have something to say about it's use if they were aware and had not given permission for it to happen.

As far as images go, the owners of copyright can be quite possessive and litigious! A local am dram company were about to produce a "Night at the Musicals" production here, and to advertise it used a bevy of photos taken from publicity for West End musicals. A friend of the impresario responsible for quite a few of these musicals happened to be in the theatre one evening, and the producer of the play ended up with the threat of legal proceedings if they were not instantaneously removed... a very dodgy area to get involved in!