It would be hard for them to turn it off just for services that do not 
have "the principal purpose" of "driving traffic to the Amazon website 
and driving sales of products and services on the Amazon website."

Libraries are not alone in users of AWS who do not have this "principal 
purpose". Despite that language, it's not clear to me that Amazon 
actually has any particular interest in preventing such use. 

But they wouldn't need to switch me off technologically, if I received 
any communications from Amazon suggesting my use violates their ToS, I'd 
immediately comply with their requests.  My further thoughts on this can 
be found here: 
http://bibwild.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/think-you-can-use-amazon-api-for-library-service-book-covers/


However, my understanding is that Worldcat forbids any use of those 
cover images _at all_.  This is much more clear cut, and OCLC is much 
more likely to care, then Amazon's more bizarre restrictions as to 
purpose.  It's of course up to the individual implemeter, perhaps in 
consultation with the service provider and/or legal counsel,  to decide 
if they are complying or not, but that's my own evaluation.  I don't 
even know of any WorldCat APIs that would allow you to get WorldCat 
cover images other than through a screen-scrape though, so I'm curious 
how anyone is doing it, if anyone is doing it.

Jonathan

Kyle Banerjee wrote:
> Yah, but same could be said for Amazon. From http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/
>
> 5.1.3. You are not permitted to use Amazon Associates Web Service with
> any Application or for any use that does not have, as its principal
> purpose, driving traffic to the Amazon Website and driving sales of
> products and services on the Amazon Website.
>
> Maybe libraries are under the radar, and maybe Amazon doesn't care,
> but getting addicted to this stuff is not without risk. If the load
> ever became something they cared about, they could turn it off in a
> snap.
>
> kyle
>
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 12:53 PM, Jonathan Rochkind <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>   
>> You can get cover images from worldcat? How?  I'm pretty sure the worldcat
>> ToS specifically disallow you from re-using those covers, even if you are
>> managing to get them via machine access somehow.
>>
>> Lynch,Katherine wrote:
>>     
>>> Going along with Jonathan Rochkind, Amazon does a good job of supplying
>>> some movie images.  Also in general, WorldCat, if that's an option to
>>> you.  For a good example of wealth/response time, check out Gabe's video
>>> search:
>>> http://www.library.drexel.edu/video/search
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Katherine Lynch
>>> Library Webmaster
>>> Drexel University Libraries
>>> 215.895.1344 (p)
>>> 215.895.2070 (f)
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>>> Edward M. Corrado
>>> Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 2:38 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: [CODE4LIB] Free cover images?
>>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> We are reevaluating our source of cover images. At this point I have
>>> identified four possible sources of free images:
>>>
>>> 1. Amazon
>>> 2. Google Books
>>> 3. LibraryThing
>>> 4. OpenLibrary
>>>
>>> I know that their is some question if the Amazon and Google books images
>>>
>>> will allow this (although I've also yet to hear Amazon or Google telling
>>>
>>> libraries that use their Web services for this to cease and desist).
>>> However, besides that issue, has anyone noticed any technical problems with
>>> any of these four? I'm especially concerned about slow and/or non-consistent
>>> performance.
>>>
>>> Edward
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>
>
>
>