Comments on: Image Abuse

By: Nat Gertler

Nat Gertler — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 01:56:55 +0000

Well, part of the point of the guide is that you can generate the images without the sale button… and as I said, if you’re doing reviews and linking to their site, they’ll probably be glad, even if you aren’t an Associate. (Gladder,even, because then they don’t have to give you any money!)

By: girldetective

girldetective — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 02:36:42 +0000

I am not an amazon associate, and one of the reason that I’ve used other sources for images for books and movies (usually Powells.com and Rottentomatoes.com, respectively) is that the images are more uniform and don’t have those annoying sale buttons on them. I am linking every site whose image I use, but rotten tomatoes isn’t selling movies, so it’s not the same as amazon or powells. For now, I’m going to keep on without images.

By: Nat Gertler

Nat Gertler — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 21:37:38 +0000

While I’m glad that my piece got you thinking, Amazon does in various ways actually encourage use of their bandwidth to send images with links back to them. They have various ways for their Associate members to integrate such things into their websites. One might argue that you haven’t dotted every i and crossed every t legally, but if you’re doing reviews of books and linking to Amazon, they’ll probably be happy (and generally offer people a kickback for any sales generated — that’s what the Associates program is about.) I would suspect other online bookstores would feel similarly.

By: MFS

MFS — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 01:47:25 +0000

Are you an Amazon associate? If so, using their images it totally okay. Using other sites’ images, though, is a problem. Free Photo or whatever and a couple of other places offer free images. We use free images sometimes over at M-mv (e.g., the flags on Memorial Day). Usually all they require is a line of attribution.

By: Jack Vinson

Jack Vinson — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:51:45 +0000

I would assume that if the image links to a website where you can buy the book or movie, then you are possibly okay. But it is true that when you link directly to someone else’s website (whether Amazon or Joe’s Garage), you use a little of their bandwidth everytime someone views your content.