I apologize for some tweaking going on with pics of the book covers. I was doing it a weird way, creating my own copy of each cover and then linking to Amazon. It was time consuming, but prettier, I thought.
But the hubby freaked when he saw how much bandwidth that was using. Whoops! What I don't know about the Web will kill me one of these days.
So I started using the Amazon sales boxes, which they service (i.e., it's their bandwidth, not mine) but I hated the aesthetics.
So now I've joined Barnes and Noble's affiliates program. It appears to my untrained eye that the graphics are identical to what I'd been doing, just without the text wrapping. Good enough.
I have no brand loyalty here. Both online retailers are excellent and the kickbacks commissions are so teeny, it makes no difference to me where people shop.
Back tomorrow with Poetry Friday. If you have a moment, stop by my other site and bid it farewell.
The reason I have linked to Amazon with my book covers is I DO try to model good copyright practice. (I do slip once and a while but I try.) I could not think of a way to display bookcovers without seeking permission of each publisher so I started linking to Amazon. I figured being an Associate gives me those rights.
Posted by: Camille | April 29, 2006 at 02:14 PM
I don't believe I ever violated any copyrights for 2 reasons:
1. I was saving the pics from Amazon and even following their instructions for doing so.
2. I do believe it's covered under the "fair use doctrine" of U.S. copyright laws. This stipulates that you CAN reproduce elements of a book for the purpose of a review.
I routinely email links of my reviews to publicists and none has ever asked me to stop reproducing the covers.
Nonetheless, it's an interesting question. I have a good friend who's an attorney specializing in intellectual property and she'll likely have a better answer.
Meanwhile, I'd be happy to hear what others do.
Posted by: Anne | April 29, 2006 at 08:08 PM