I believe perhaps I can use:

$user =& JFactory::getUser();

or

if($user->id != $owner) return "";

not really this, because this will retrieve the current user.
but if you do this, I think:

$user =& JFactory::getUser($this->album->user_id);

echo $user->username ;

or similar it should work..

Great! As always, thanks for the help, Germi.

For artist pages I did this:

$user =& JFactory::getUser($this->artist->user_id);
{
echo 'More info: username . '/">Contact Me';
}


Crap! I keep forgetting we can't post certain code here.

Hello,
I needed my users name to link back to their cb profile.
so i paste the code you noted above

$user =& JFactory::getUser($this->album->user_id);

echo $user->username ;

this is possible. thanks
would it be possible to tell me the correct path and file to paste that code so that i can link my users name to their profile?
thanks for any help