From kde-policies Mon Nov 08 17:15:02 2004 From: Scott Wheeler Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 17:15:02 +0000 To: kde-policies Subject: legal issues around cover art Message-Id: <200411081815.02767.wheeler () kde ! org> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-policies&m=109993414917450 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 _______________________________________________ Kde-policies mailing list Kde-policies@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-policies