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I am actually pretty certain that Amazon _has_ licensed their covers, and particularly from Syndetics. Where Syndetics gets their covers remains a mystery to me, one I am very curious about. Jonathan Tim Spalding wrote: > First, IANAL, obviously. > > >> Clearly, publishers own the intellectual property of a cover graphic. Could >> using thumbnail images of lots of covers in aggregate be considered fair >> use? Maybe, the law is not clear (there is some case law to suggest it >> could be, but it's hardly settled). >> > > Publishers make their covers available to them and to others because > they desperately want their covers out there. You can get covers from > publishers with amazing ease. I do not suspect Amazon or Syndetics > have licensed the covers in any way. > > LibraryThing asserts no copyright over the images. In most cases, > copyright rests with the publisher. (In the case of the cover I > designed for my wife's book, it rests with me; I'll tell you nobody at > Amazon has asked for my permission—snort!) As such, there are fair and > unfair uses of the images. Using images in connection with selling > product is generally considered fair use. That's why you can take a > picture of your cool decorate skateboard and post it on ebay, but you > can't make a huge photo of the skateboard and make posters of it. > Commentary is another fair use harbor. I've never seen OPAC use > directly mentioned, but I can't imagine it wouldn't fall under it as > well. If you can show a cover to sell a book, a library can surely > show a cover to patrons interested in checking it out. > > >> Would publishers mind if you are using their intellectual property like >> this? It's not clear. >> > > Do publishers sell covers or books? > > >> On the one hand, these days everyone thinks they >> should be getting paid if you are using their IP for anything. On the other >> hand, _some_ publishers are giving thumbnails for free to Internet Archive. >> Maybe publishers realize giving you this 'property' to, after all, let you >> advertise their wares for them, is a good thing. Of course Bowker/Syndetics >> (and I think Ingram has a cover service too?) don't like free covers because >> they make money from it. I am very very curious as to what terms Bowker has >> with the publishers; does Bowker have an _exclusive_ license with the >> publishers to do certain things? >> > > No. They don't. > > >> How much, if any, do the publishers get >> paid for Bowker's use of their cover images? Very curious what the business >> situation is, because that helps us guess how various actors will behave. >> > > I suspect the answer is nothing. There may be payments on either side > to make it happen easily. > > Tim > > -- Jonathan Rochkind Digital Services Software Engineer The Sheridan Libraries Johns Hopkins University 410.516.8886 rochkind (at) jhu.edu