Quote:
Originally Posted by starrigger
I had a conversation recently with a publisher's art director on this very question. The reason they can use the original cover art in the catalog when they don't have the rights to it for the ebook proper is that standard contracts with the artists give them the right to use the image for promotional and marketing purposes. In some cases, it's ambiguous whether they could also use the art in the ebook itself, so they take a conservative approach--and in others they just don't have the rights (though according to this art director they are now acquiring ebook rights with new art commissions).
So that's the explanation. That said, I feel the same way when I buy an ebook--I'd like to have the cover art with it, and feel gypped if I don't get it. Usually I use Calibre to add the cover image myself.
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Thanks for clarifying that, starrigger. And to TallMom, I can't imagine anyone coming after you for that either-but (this is a general comment, not an assumption that what you're doing is, in fact, illegal) when I break a law I prefer to do so knowingly. I, personally, don't mind breaking laws in the pursuit of justice (well, depends on the law-I probably wouldn't kill someone just because the prosecutor blew the case against them, although there was one guy who, after being found not guilty of raping & killing a teenage girl, held a press conference to admit he did it. And they couldn't re-try him because of double jeopardy. Him, I might consider killing-but that would be an exception.)
Anyway, what I dislike is being caught breaking a law when I'm not doing it intentionally. So I do concern myself with questions of legality even when those questions don't affect what I do. Sometimes that makes others seem me as what, persnickety? Whatever-I don't mean to imply that you should stop, I'm just commenting, deliberating as it were, about whether or not it is legal.