User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-1398253-20130313220310/@comment-6433721-20130329181219

There was a fair use decision covering the use of photos as reference material, if they're reduced to thumbnail size. Our exposure on that is that many of our are not resized, they're just displayed at thumbnail.

I think using the summaries is very low risk, because we're not making money off them and it would be tough to argue we're negatively impacting sales. Sane companies perhaps even recognise that it's free advertising and specifically avoid looking for infringement like this.

However, that does not mean we have the right to use them. We're not doing anything transformative with these - we're reusing the text without commenting, summarising, or reviewing, we're not proving a scholarly point or producing a parody. So, by commercial terms it's not fair use.

As we're non-commercial, we get some leeway, but when we pair the publisher's summary with a complete summary of the plot, we're opening ourselves to the argument that we're using their text in an account that competes with their narrative - possibly damaging sales, which takes it back to the wrong side of fair use. Why risk anything of the sort when most times you can produce a much better summary than the company teaser in just a few moments?