Yeah, the law is pretty unclear.
I don't think LT or Wikipedia are taking an unreasonable risk. Odds are,
the publishers aren't going to complain. If they do, and you are willing
to go to court, it's a toss up as to whether you'd win or not.
Jonathan
Thomas Dowling wrote:
On 08/07/2008 04:04 PM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
I am actually pretty certain that Amazon _has_ licensed their covers,
and particularly from Syndetics.
Contrariwise, Wikipedia includes book and DVD covers and movie
posters, with a pretty verbose explanation of why they think they're
allowed to do so (see for example
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:StarWarsMoviePoster1977.jpg>).
I guess they just define their use as allowed and wait for someone to
challenge them on it?
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Digital Services Software Engineer
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
