Copying dustjacket blurbs

Grey area on use of (attibuted) dustjacket blurbs in book descriptions.

William Klimon, Robert, Denise Enck and Bud Webster argue that it's ok.
Pat O'Brien argues (compellingly) that it's not ok.

Please excuse my quoting people's opinions and I apologise if that's
inappropriate or I got it wrong.

I like to type big chunks of dustjacket blurb in my ebay listings (cremorn)
I also try very hard to learn to be a good bookseller. In the future I would
like to make it my full time pursuit. It is of concern to me if I am doing
something wrong.

On what basis do think that it is ok to copy dustjacket blurbs in book
listings?

Many thanks,
Richard.

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 05:05:49 UTC, (Richard
Moriarty) wrote:

Grey area on use of (attibuted) dustjacket blurbs in book descriptions.

William Klimon, Robert, Denise Enck and Bud Webster argue that it's ok.
Pat O'Brien argues (compellingly) that it's not ok.

Please excuse my quoting people's opinions and I apologise if that's
inappropriate or I got it wrong.

I like to type big chunks of dustjacket blurb in my ebay listings (cremorn)
I also try very hard to learn to be a good bookseller. In the future I would
like to make it my full time pursuit. It is of concern to me if I am doing
something wrong.

On what basis do think that it is ok to copy dustjacket blurbs in book
listings?

Legally, I don't know or care. I don't like it and it reduces my
estimation of the seller.

It isn't necessary. People who see your listing have already decided
that they want that title, so it is a waste of time and bandwidth. I
want to know what kind of shape the book is in. I don't need the
sellers editorial commentary or that of the blurb guy from marketing
a the publisher. I'm likely to skip that listing to go straight to
one
that has the information I want.

It is also too pushy-salesy. It is like a car dealer who keeps
telling you the car you've already decided to buy is a great ride.

--
Mark Heaely
marknews(at)healeyonline(dot)com

Mark writes:

It isn't necessary. People who see your listing have already decided
that they want that title, so it is a waste of time and bandwidth.

I don't know about on eBay, but I have many times used keyword searching on ABE
to find books that I didn't know the titles of, only details of the plot,
character names, and so forth. I'm always grateful when a bookseller includes a
description of that sort, though of course I would rather it was not ripped off
from another bookseller!

I agree that comments of the "A great old book from the days when they knew how
to write 'em" type are less than useful. But dang it, when someone wants to
know "What's that book about three different-sized witches named Mogget,
Grommet, and Pellet, who rode around in a set of measuring cups?" those
descriptions come in handy! (I made this one up ... I think.)

--Helen

on 28 Jul 2003 in rec.collecting.books, Denise Enck chanted thus:

I do think the sometimes the blurb can contain useful information,
summing up the book & its contents in (possibly) a tidier way than the
bookseller could, especially when it comes to non-fiction books (which
is mostly what I deal in). Of course, if one is hunting for a specific
book, the blurb isn't going to mean a thing - but as Bud said, it can
be helpful when browsing.


If you are looking for non-fiction such as biographies that mention someone
(or something) other than the main subject, this sort of extra information
can be invaluable.

It can also be misleading: I recently bought a biography of a Victorian
writer who was described on the blurb - quoted online - as knowing, amongst
others, one of my manias: Frank Harris. The book itself never even
mentioned Harris, not once. Presumably the blurb writer consulted some
other biographical source rather than actually reading the book: quite
understandably, as it was very dull. (Fortunately for me it was also very
cheap.)

For the books I collect I would ask for as detailed a description as
possible: blurb and chapter headings at least. But then, I am perhaps
unusual in that I buy many books that I have never heard of before I come
across them.

--
Alfred Armstrong
Now! With added Dot.Communism: http://www.oddbooks.com/
"The eye has been described by scientists as a small-sized volcano"
- Webster Edgerly

"Mark Healey" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 05:05:49 UTC, (Richard
Moriarty) wrote:

On what basis do think that it is ok to copy dustjacket blurbs in book
listings?

Legally, I don't know or care. I don't like it and it reduces my
estimation of the seller.

Until the discussion in this group, I never thought about copying the
dustjacket blurbs as a copyright issue. I'm usually very careful about
things like that, and since I copy blurbs a lot (with attribution), I had a
few shakey moments of self searching. But now that I've considered it, I
agree with those who feel it falls into "fair use." The publisher intended
those blurbs to help sell the book. If I wanted to load up my auction with
lots of large photos, I could present all the same information (and more).
It just doesn't bother me in the least to quote a dust jacket blurb.


It isn't necessary. People who see your listing have already decided
that they want that title, so it is a waste of time and bandwidth. I
want to know what kind of shape the book is in. I don't need the
sellers editorial commentary or that of the blurb guy from marketing
a the publisher. I'm likely to skip that listing to go straight to
one
that has the information I want.

It is also too pushy-salesy. It is like a car dealer who keeps
telling you the car you've already decided to buy is a great ride.


I agree that for fiction, people who see your listing probably already know
they want the title. I also thinks it's generally true of people who are
searching on ABE or similar databases. But eBay is full of browsers and
people who will buy a title (if it's cheap enough) just because it sounds
interesting and it came up in their searchs. If I've read a book myself and
remember it clearly, I am inclined to write a blurb on content myself.
Otherwise, I try to pick out representative sentences (or sometimes
paragraphs) from the jacket blurbs. If it's non-fiction, sometimes I will
list the table of contents, summarize appendices, and add anything else on
content that I think will help a browser decide if they want my book.

Of course, I also include a condition description of excruciating detail.

Alice

Bud Webster wrote in message . ..

On what basis do think that it is ok to copy dustjacket blurbs in book
listings?

Richard, blurbs and flap copy are there to sell the book. They're
quoted by advertisers as well as both new and used booksellers.
Quoting them falls under fair use.



I don't think that "fair use" is applicable in this case. Fair use is
an almost exclusively noncommercial concept: the Copyright Office,
e.g., cites no example of a commercial use being fair use in the
summary of court findings he

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Fair use applies whether the copyright holder desire the use or not
(as in the case of parodies and negative reviews). In the case of
blurbage, the holder clearly wants the use to be made. Therefore, I
would argue that the copyright holders are granting sellers an implied
license for the purpose of describing the book to potential buyers.
Can you imagine the alternative--if a copyright holder attempted to
enforce its rights against sellers? "No, you may not use the
copyrighted language 'The greatest novel of the millennium' in your
store's signage or newsletter." That author/publisher would be
dropped by retailers at light speed.


BTW: I'm a big fan of substantive blurbage--I search online by
keywords, so the more information, the better. I rarely search just
by author/title. As often as not, I'm looking for things I've never
seen before--I need the keywords to guide me to the treasure trove. I
guess this is another one of those difference between collectors of
modern firsts and genre fiction, on the one hand, and more traditional
collectors, on the other.


William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com

In article ,
(Richard Moriarty) wrote:

Grey area on use of (attibuted) dustjacket blurbs in book descriptions.

William Klimon, Robert, Denise Enck and Bud Webster argue that it's ok.
Pat O'Brien argues (compellingly) that it's not ok.

Please excuse my quoting people's opinions and I apologise if that's
inappropriate or I got it wrong.

I like to type big chunks of dustjacket blurb in my ebay listings (cremorn)
I also try very hard to learn to be a good bookseller. In the future I would
like to make it my full time pursuit. It is of concern to me if I am doing
something wrong.

On what basis do think that it is ok to copy dustjacket blurbs in book
listings?

Many thanks,
Richard.


If I make a selected quote from a dustwrapper blurb it appears in quotes
and ends with this: [from dw].

Here's a typical copyrighted discription from one of my catalogs, of the
very sort eBay googlers find at my website then copy verbatim on eBay:

Cabell, James Branch. SOMETHING ABOUT EVE: A Comedy of Fig-leaves. NY:
McBride Kalki Edition, 1927. 1st/Fine in mildly chipped pictorial dw. #13
of the Poictesme series. After he was irrationally castigated for
immorality over Jurgen, Cabell was "determined to be naughty in this book,
which abounds in sexual symbols & lewd double-entendres...a very amusing
book" [Bleiler's Guide]. A complexly woven fantasy of the demon Glaum &
the 19th Century American poet Musgrave, "with a strong supporting cast of
not wholly unfamiliar characters, which includes God, the Emperor Nero,
King Solomon, Merlin, the Sphinx, Francois Vilion, Satan, Odysseus,
Tanhauser, &--somewhere preeminently--Eve" [from dw blurb]. $45.00

Now fair use of an observation from Ev Bleiler is in that discription,
credited. Although the dustwrapper quote is likely public domain, there's
no reason to let it stand as though original to me, so it too is credited.
Were it a short story collection I'd read, I will sometimes list them by
category, which tales are criminist, which supernatural. To see such a
discription lifted wholesale from my catalogs by some know-nothing
thieving scoundral on eBay is very angering. That someone might think
someone's eBay discription came first is galling. I wish the law had more
bite so I could force an automatic five hundred dollar reprint fee every
time a googling eBay thief lights upon my catalog when trying to figure
out what his auction item should be priced and how to describe it. The
thievery is two deep, because not only has copyrighted material been
infringed as though no permission or fee is required, but it is
additionally fully plagiarised by the pretence that it is the thief's
discription.

Once when I policed this activity the eBay thief did remove the stolen
discription, but replaced it with a statement that he was voluntarily
changing the listing because the former discription was incorrect, and he
hadn't known it was an incorrect until after he read the book himself. He
then followed with a brand new discription, uncredited, stolen from
another website. But with that new preface to stolen material, which was
aimed at insulting me, he lyingly claimed the new stolen discription was
the result of his personal reading rather than of another google search.
So being informed it was illegal and dishonest really didn't phase the
lying thieving fool.

It showed, at least, that people who swipe their discriptions from their
betters are not doing so "innocently," and they are lying crooks on much
more than that one level. It's an automatic warning not to trust such a
seller -- ever.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

"Mark Healey" wrote in message

....


It isn't necessary. People who see your listing have already decided
that they want that title, so it is a waste of time and bandwidth. I
want to know what kind of shape the book is in. I don't need the
sellers editorial commentary or that of the blurb guy from marketing
a the publisher. I'm likely to skip that listing to go straight to
one
that has the information I want.


I don't care one way or another about dust jacket blurbs, but I will often
look up a book I see mentioned as a hot seller here (or elsewhere) and if I
see positive comments from one or two booksellers whose opinion I trust, I'm
more likely to take a chance with my limited funds. I always like it when
booksellers share their enthusiasm (or lack thereof) for particular books.

Rachel Wright