Book Jacket Images for Library Web Pages

[Barbara Brattin]

Just a general warning to the library webmaster community about using 
images of book jackets from Amazon.com or publishers' web sites for readers 
advisory pages. We decided to pursue copyright permissions to use these 
images on our "Book of the Month" section we are designing for our new web 
site. In a scathing reply, both on paper and via telephone, Simon and 
Schuster denied us permission. I had initially contacted Amazon.com for 
permission to use the images from their site. They informed me that they 
have a full-time staff that secures these individual permissions. The same 
permission was denied to me by S&S because, simply stated, libraries do not 
sell books. When I mentioned that we do have influence over people's 
choices I was ridiculed.
I never expected to be denied permission. I expected the publishing world 
to be grateful that we would promote their products. After much 
negotiation, S&S is going to make "an exception" for this library and 
consider permission for individual titles. In other words, I will have to 
cite title by title which books I will be highlighting and the dates the 
images will appear on my page. S&S will consider these requests on a case 
by case basis. By the way, this applies to anything in print as well, so 
when we promote a book discussion and want to create posters that show the 
book jacket, we need to have permission.
I know that many libraries freely use these images already on their web 
pages, and when questioned about copyright infringement, laugh it off.  Be 
careful.
For those of you who have gone through this painful permissions seeking 
process, I'd like to hear about your experiences. Does fair use come into 
play here? We aren't selling anything- why can't we use the images?
We are in the process of migrating to a web catalog written in HTML. It was 
my dream to add book jacket images to jazz up the copies availablity pages. 
Needless to say, I'm frustrated, and after talking with Simon and Schuster, 
I'm insulted.