Getting A Cover Image Without Violating Copyright

[Philip]

How do Goodreads Librarians get cover images without violating copyrights? I know all you have to do is find an image and save it to use it, but how do you do so with permission from the copyright holder of that particular image? Also, who owns the copyrights typically for cover images? Is it the publisher? Or the particular site- like Amazon or Barnes and Noble?

[Gerd]

I would think that the rights are laying with the publisher usually, but for cases like goodreads (or using cover pics on blogs) you deal with what is called "fair use"

[Lenore]

With Indie authors, it would be the author, and we usually copy each others books to our blogs, but with a link to where it is sold. It must carry the link.

[Carolyn]

What Gerd said, the cover is covered (hah!) under the 'fair use' provision of copyright laws.

Just to clarify, this does not require GR to post a specific link to where it is sold, those links are already provided on each book page, under the description. The link field on each book page is to a page for the book that provides information or additional content, not just sales.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Carolyn wrote: "What Gerd said, the cover is covered (hah!) under the 'fair use' provision of copyright laws."

To be clear (because this has come up before), this is only true when the cover in its entirety is posted. The cover art alone, for example, would almost certainly not be covered under fair use.