Purchased new Jim Butcher book..no cover..

[davers]

You know what would really make me mad..if I purchased donuts and I got home and they were not in the bag! That scenario makes a missing book cover seem trivial!

As a side note, I stripped the DRM off my first book last night so I could add the cover, picture of the author, and delete the hyperlinked chapters! Hah! Take that large corporation!

Dave

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by davers

You know what would really make me mad..if I purchased donuts and I got home and they were not in the bag! That scenario makes a missing book cover seem trivial!

As a side note, I stripped the DRM off my first book last night so I could add the cover, picture of the author, and delete the hyperlinked chapters! Hah! Take that large corporation!

Dave

Your post provides a good example of why missing punctuation in books matters:

"Take that large corporation!"

means something very different to:

"Take that, large corporation!"

[davers]

ROFL Harry! Touche'

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

Of course doing so potentially violates the copyright on the cover image. I'm not certain, legally, but I'll make the assumption that if the cover you download is from the catalog where you purchased it, then you presumably have a right to download that image. Unless the seller is using it in violation of the copyright, anyway. You probably don't have the right to download images from other sources though. (There's a pretty gray area right now though, as to what constitutes the image. I'll sometimes download the 'same' image as was in the catalog, but from another source, because the image in the catalog is lo-res whereas the other source has it hi-res. Assuming I do have the right to download the image, to which version do I have the right? The right would be under copyright, and the same copyright would apply to both versions so, possibly, I would have the right to download either. I'm not sure about that though-haven't seen any cases covering it yet.)

This is for personal use and I can't imagine anyone coming after me for that. Plus, couldn't using the cover art for personal use be considered fair use?

[LDBoblo]

If the publisher isn't going to do their job, I'd be happy to pay the author's normal take plus a $1 hosting and marketing fee. I don't want to pay them for a job they're not doing.

[whitearrow]

I'm with Susan -- I don't care about covers. I'm far more concerned about proper formatting and proofreading.

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

I'm with Susan -- I don't care about covers. I'm far more concerned about proper formatting and proofreading.

Whereas if they can't even be bothered to include the cover art, my confidence in their ability to have properly handled more subtle details goes way down.

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

IMO it's misrepresentation on their part, possibly sufficient to justify canceling the purchase. That's if, as it seems in this case, they use a 'published' cover image in advertising the ebook. If that's true, then you didn't receive what was advertised, which is legally actionable-in the US, at least.

As for not having rights, if that's true then they shouldn't be using the cover in their catalog either.

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.

[calvin-c]

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.

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.