MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Images from Google Books, Internet Archive, etc.

vivaldirules · 07-06-2008, 09:51 AM

I frequently find books at Project Gutenberg which originally were printed with excellent illustrations but the files available contain only text. I often find scans of the printed (illustrated) versions at Books or Internet Archive and nowhere else. So the question is: am I legally permitted to capture the images of the illustrations I want from those viewable scans (or downloadable PDFs) of public domain works and use them to create illustrated ebooks for posting here? I can't seem to find copyright information about the scanned images which, it seems to me, might themselves be protected. For example, a book I posted in text-only form is available in full-view here at Google:

http://books.google.com/books?id=rlQ...um=100#PPP1,M1

The only place I can see that might mention legal issues is here but I see nothing relevant to my question:

http://books.google.com/support/?fulldump=1

Ditto for this book that I posted for which the Internet Archive has a scanned copy:

http://www.archive.org/details/kasid...jiabd008491mbp

Their Terms of Use document is here:

http://www.archive.org/about/terms.php

Any thoughts or experience with this?

07-06-2008, 09:51 AM	#1
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	Images from Google Books, Internet Archive, etc. I frequently find books at Project Gutenberg which originally were printed with excellent illustrations but the files available contain only text. I often find scans of the printed (illustrated) versions at Books or Internet Archive and nowhere else. So the question is: am I legally permitted to capture the images of the illustrations I want from those viewable scans (or downloadable PDFs) of public domain works and use them to create illustrated ebooks for posting here? I can't seem to find copyright information about the scanned images which, it seems to me, might themselves be protected. For example, a book I posted in text-only form is available in full-view here at Google: http://books.google.com/books?id=rlQ...um=100#PPP1,M1 The only place I can see that might mention legal issues is here but I see nothing relevant to my question: http://books.google.com/support/?fulldump=1 Ditto for this book that I posted for which the Internet Archive has a scanned copy: http://www.archive.org/details/kasid...jiabd008491mbp Their Terms of Use document is here: http://www.archive.org/about/terms.php Any thoughts or experience with this?