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List:       kde-policies
Subject:    legal issues around cover art
From:       Scott Wheeler <wheeler () kde ! org>
Date:       2004-11-08 17:15:02
Message-ID: 200411081815.02767.wheeler () kde ! org
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Ok, so another sticky question -- and one that I don't feel comfortable 
deciding on my own:

Displaying cover art in KDE's music players is a popular feature or requested 
features.  As of yesterday JuK supports this, including an internet based 
lookup using Google's image search.

However, I was reluctant to commit that and think (and even argued against 
such just last week -- but it was part of a larger patch that I did want in).

There are two methods that are presently being used -- JuK is using Google 
image search to fetch images that can then be saved locally, amaroK is using 
Amazon's web services.  Unfortunately I think that both of these are of 
dubious legality.  I'd like to hear other opinions on this as well.

*) Google image search -- this works by doing a search and displaying a dialog 
that lets the user choose one of the images that's found.  However, these 
images are naturally copyrighted.  I'm not sure if copying them to the local 
hard drive for personal use can be viewed as fair use.  I'm not sure where 
the legal line is between Google being able to cache them and us being able 
to cache them locally.

*) Amazon web services -- this one has a clearly defined terms of use, but my 
reading of these terms [1] (sections C and D specifically) is such that they 
cannot be used in a GPL'ed app.  Specifically the requirements for linkage to 
Amazon, linking to other stores being banned, not allowing certain uses of 
the data, etc. seem problematic.  Specifically, if you took a GPL'ed 
application and removed the line of code that caused it to link to Amazon it 
would no longer be legal to redistribute said application.  This would seem 
to contradict the terms of the GPL.

I tend to prefer the Google one since it seems to be at least in the gray area 
to my mind, but I'm not sure if either is legal enough for inclusion in KDE.  
Thoughts?

Cheers,

-Scott


[1]http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=sc_fe_c_1_13553801_4/102-1312546-3647361?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=3440661&no=13553801&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA


-- 
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer 
shelf life.
--Frank Zappa
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