[Web4lib] Copyright and Book cover images

[Will Kurt]

I have a question that I've been curious about for awhile, but 
haven't been able to find an answer to.  What are the copyright 
issues regarding the use of book cover images, especially ones from Amazon?

I've noticed a lot of websites (LibraryThing for example) will pull 
images from Amazon, often directly linking to the image hosted on 
Amazon's server.  For obvious reasons using images of book covers can 
be very useful but I was always unclear of the legal/ethical issues 
surrounding this?  If I want to add images of book covers to my 
library website or OPAC is it okay to use Amazon's image covers, if 
so, is it actually preferable to link directly to the Amazon image or 
would it be better to host it locally? Normally I would assume 
hosting it locally would be better due to bandwidth issues, but so 
many people take the images hosted by Amazon I was wondering if 
perhaps they preferred this?

Or do sites like LibraryThing pay a licensing fee to Amazon or 
something similar?

Are there other routes to obtaining images?

Thanks!

Will

____________
Will Kurt
Research Librarian
BBN Technologies
617-873-8019
wkurt at bbn.com