Re: Use of Amazon.com Content in Koha's Catalog

There's an ongoing discussion of this over at the CODE4LIB listserv.
Google specifically states that their cover art and other metadata can
be used in libraries.  In fact, Ex Libris is integrating it into the
next Voyager release apparently.  (Some details here:
http://tinyurl.com/2zo2x9 )

As for where they get their art, it's probably from the publishers.  I
assume Amazon gets it from them too. I believe it was Tim Spalding who
pointed out, some time ago, that publishers WANT the cover art and
other metadata to be freely accessible.  It's not in their best
interest to restrict the kinds of uses we're generally talking about
here.

It's worthwhile to note that Amazon does not own (nor do they claim to
own afaik) copyright to the art.  Even if they scanned all the covers
themselves, they don't own it any more than we'd own content of
scanned books done in our library.  What they DO own is the bandwidth,
server space, etc, used to deliver the AWS content.  They do have a
legal right to limit or otherwise control that particular piece of the
content delivery network.  I'd liken it to a book you own.  You don't
own the copyright, but you're within you rights to dictate the terms
governing whether or not you'll let someone read your copy--"you can't
write it in, you can't read it in the bathroom, you can't tear out
pages..."  Or "you can borrow it if you have a library card, and pay
your fines, etc."

Say what you want about the business model, but it's not entirely
unreasonable to think that Amazon, as a retail operation, wouldn't
want to provide storage and bandwidth for our catalogs without getting
some kind of benefit in return.

--
Mark Sandford
Special Formats Cataloger
William Paterson University
(973)270-2437
sandfordm1 <at> wpunj.edu

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 7:43 PM, David Kane <dkane <at> wit.ie> wrote:
> The new Google Books api (which we use on our catalogue
>  http://witcat.wit.ie/ ) uses cover art.  I wonder where G. Books gets their
>  art?  Could that be used?
>
>  David.
>