ISFDB:Image linking permissions

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The ISFDB displays images of cover art for publications, and images of authors. In both cases, the ISFDB stores a URL of an image hosted on anther site, and displays that image (hot-linking) during page generation. Currently (9 May 2008) the ISFDB does not host any such images itself, although it may do so in future.

The need for permission

Since such images are hosted by another site, that site will get a hit, and a request to serve the entire image each time that an ISFDB user views a page with an image URL being displayed. If the ISFDB uses many images from a given site, and those images are on relatively popular ISFDB pages, this might result in a significant amount of bandwidth for the host site. Since the images are displayed as part of an ISFDB page, no other content from the host site, and no advertisements it may include, are displayed. Some host sites are unwilling to permit this. In particular, Wikipedia, and other sites run by Wikipedia's parent, the WikiMedia Foundation, have a strong policy against such use of images hosted on their sites. They consider it "bandwidth theft" and will block all links from sites detected in such linking, according to their announced policies.

List of sites granting permission

  • The following sites have granted permission (explicitly, or implicitly by virtue of their own terms of use) to the ISFDB to link to images that they host.
    • 1632.org and ericflint.net and grantvillegazette.com and riversofwar.com Permission to link to any of these 1632, Inc. domains granted by "Head Geek" Rick Boatright via email to moderators on 2011-06-18.
    • Ace image library "I give you permission to use whatever images that you need from the ACE IMAGE LIBRARY for the ISFDB and appreciate the credit notation for this usage. I should note that a couple of the AIL images (primarily for original cover art or prelliminary drawings as well as a couple of the inserts or daybills for the Man From U.N.C.L.E movies) have been permitted to the AIL from other sources. These are noted on the appropriate AIL page and if you use these you may wish to credit them as "Original art / movie art for ........ . Permission for use given to AIL."
    • Amazon - As an Amazon associate, ISFDB has implicit permission to use Amazon's images. Things to keep in mind when linking to an Amazon-hosted image:
      • Check that the image is actually the correct one for your edition.
      • Keep in mind that if a publication is still in print, Amazon may replace its image with an updated one without warning.
      • A good-quality medium-sized image is usually available by clicking on the "See This Image" link under the smaller cover image. Some Amazon pages do not have this link, but the larger version can be obtained by right-clicking on the image and copying its URL. This works even for those books that generally only display a thumbnail marred by the "Look Inside" banner.
      • Many images displayed by Amazon contain additional formatting such as borders, shades, framing, shrinking and so on. The formatting is embedded in Amazon URLs by adding an underscore and a special code. For example, "AA" adds white borders, "SS" changes the size of the image, "SL" creates a small thumb, and "CR" adds cropping. Except for "CR" (see below), these formatting codes are not supported by the ISFDB software. Remove them from the URL before entering it into the database. This is accomplished by removing everything starting with the penultimate period up to the final period.
      • If an Amazon image contains unwanted elements, e.g. a large background or other books, you can add cropping before the final period in the URL. The format is "._CR102,6,148,257", where "._CR" tells Amazon to crop the images, "102" is the left border, "6" is the top border, "148" is the width and "257" is the height. Follow this link to ecx.images-images-amazon.com/images/I/41SpdLJPcRL._CR102,6,148,257.jpg to see the result.
    • Armchair Fiction. Permission has been granted by the owner, Gregory Luce, via an Armchair Fiction employee, Susan Greer: "I have consulted the owner of Armchair Fiction, Gregory Luce, and he has authorized me to give permission to link to images on our website. Thanks, Susan Greer".
    • Black Bed Sheet Books / Downwarden.com. Permission has been granted by the owner, Nicholas Grabowsky (Downwarden) to link to images on this website: I'm the publisher/owner of Black Bed Sheet Books and give permission for ISFDB to use images from www.downwarden.com
    • Bookscans ("Graphically illustrating the evolution of vintage American paperbacks - 1939 through 1979") "The ISFDB hereby has permission to link to any page or picture on the BookScans web site."
    • Collectors Showcase This is a great source for images of pulps, digests and early hardcover editions, and not just French publications.
    • Dagan Books Permission to link images use other public information given by Carrie Cuinn, the site owner, on 2010-12-15.
    • De Boekenplank is a website devoted to Dutch-language SF. Permission to link images granted by the site owner, Kees Buis, via e-mail to the ISFDB moderators on 2011-04-27.
    • Diamond Bay Research and Yunchtime. Permission granted by Lex Berman, the sites' owner, via e-mail.
    • DrangStories.com. Permission granted by the owner, Steve Pendergrast aka Peter S. Drang, via e-mail on 2023-06-08.
    • Fantascienza.com - ISFDB has explicit permission to use images hosted by Fantascienza.com. To find the URL of a publication, select 'titolo' (title) in the search box on the home page and type the title (in Italian or English), then follow the links. The format is: www.fantascienza.com/catalogo/cov/DD/DDddd.jpg, where "DD" are the first two characters of the five characters code DDddd in square bracket.
    • Fantastic Fiction - ISFDB has explicit permission to use Fantastic Fiction's images, but please first check to see if the image is available on Amazon and use that one. Fantastic Fiction's bandwidth is limited and displaying the image in the ISFDB record may take time. Also, the quality of their images vary greatly so they should only be a source for otherwise unavailable images.
    • Fantlab.ru Permission to link images granted by the site owner, Alexey Lvov, via e-mail from one of the moderators, User:Papyrus, in January 2011.
    • Phil Stephensen-Payne's "Galactic Central" - ISFDB has explicit permission to use images hosted by "Galactic Central".
    • Howard Works Permission to link images granted by the site administrator, Bill Thom, via e-mail on 2017-11-29.
    • icshi We are now permitted to link directly to the covers: if you do so, please at least credit 'Icshi" in the notes, and an occasional hyperlink or two back to the site would be appreciated.
    • jeddicon.com Permission to link images given by the site owner on 2020-08-29.
    • Lawrence Dagstine Permission to link to Wordpress-hosted filed displayed on Lawrence Dagstine's Web site (lawrencedagstine.files.wordpress.com) granted by the site's owner on 2024-03-21.
    • The Luminist League Permission to link images given by the site owner on 2010-12-16.
    • Magnus' van Vogt site Icelandic site with good selection of covers Magnus is very generous too: "Hi. Feel free to link however you want, I have free bandwidth where I'm hosting the images."
    • Mondourania Italian language site. Has images of covers from many Italian SF publications. Automatically credited based on ImageURL domain.
    • Nathan M Hurst. Permission has been granted by the owner, Nathanmhurst, to link to images on this website.
    • Nitchevo Factory -- see wp.com.
    • Ofearna. Permission has been granted by the owner, Ofearna, to link to images on this website.
    • Open Library is an open source project sponsored by the Internet Archive. All their content is available for reuse under a free license. They grant permission for the sort of hotlinking we do at http://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/api/covers, and we now automatically include a backlink based on their domain, as we do for most whitelisted sites.
    • Jennifer R. Povey's site. Permission granted by the owner on 2020-03-07.
    • Pulpcovers.com. Permission granted on this Talk page in 2013.
    • SciFiwise.com. Permission granted on the "About" Web page under "Policies and Legal Stuff" on 2023-06-23.
    • SFE - The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 3rd edition. Permission granted by Dave Langford via e-mail after consulting other SFE3 editors. Note that we are only allowed to link to SFE3-hosted images that reside in the following sub-directories: /clute/, /langford/ and /robinson/. Images residing in other sub-directories were provided to SFE3 by third parties and SFE3 can't give us permission to link to them. In addition, all SFE3-hosted images must have a link to the associated "Gallery" page added after a "pipe" ("|") character. For example, the value of the "Image URL" field of the Blow, Blow Your Trumpets publication record is "http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/gal/clute/FrazerS-Blow.jpg|http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/gallery.php?id=FrazerS-Blow.jpg", where the first URL is that of the image itself and the second URL (after the "|") is that of the "Gallery" page which provides additional information about the image.
    • Smashwords. Permission granted by Mark Coker, the site's owner, via e-mail on 2017-07-07. Images should include a link to the Web page hosting the image. For example, the value of the "Image URL" field of The Book of Deacon publication record is "https://dwtr67e3ikfml.cloudfront.net/bookCovers/e3ba312dc241e64efa4ceabb6954251e6a9ddce9-thumb|https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/9354", where the first URL is that of the image itself and the second URL (after the "|") is that of the Smashwords Web page for the publication.
    • SF-Leihbuch German SF. Images should include a permanlink to the Web page hosting the image after a "|". The permalink URL is displayed at the bottom of all SF-Leihbuch Web pages. Permission granted by the site administrator in May 2019.
    • Starship Sloane Publishing "a small, independent, traditional publishing company establishing itself in the literary marketplace." Permission granted by the owner via email on 2023-12-06.
    • The Trash Collector Small images, but wide variety. Scott Stine, owner, says "Feel free to link to the pictures on my website. [...] Thanks for writing and asking permission, and good luck on your worthy endeavor."
    • Urania Mania. Mostly Italian covers, permission granted in 2012-04.
    • vanvogt Japanese site, but English text with lots of pretty covers and artist info. Yutaka, the sitemaster says "You may link my pictures to anywhere you like, but I'll be glad if you would let me know where you use them" - so drop him an email if you need to use one of them on the ISFDB.
    • http://vonniewinslowcrist.files.wordpress.com and http://vonniewinslowcrist.wordpress.com, owned by Vonnie Winslow Crist. Permission received in 2017-03 -- see FR 1009.
    • Robert G. Williscroft's Web sites: http://argee.net/, http://thrawnrickle.com/, http://slingshotnovel.com, http://starchildcompact.com, http://ivy-bells.com, http://relativitybirthdaypresent.com, http://chickenlittleagenda.com. Permission received via e-mail on 2017-10-10.
    • wp.com, used by Nitchevo Factory.

Sites known to refuse permission

The following sites are known to have policies against the kind of image linking the ISFDB does. These sites should not be used in the image URL fields, although a URL that is not a link could be placed in a notes field.

  • Wikipedia "Check the licenses of the images to figure out how to use them. In no case attempt to serve them directly from our upload server: that's commonly called 'bandwidth theft', and your site will just be denied access to our upload server as a consequence" (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights/Archive_5)
  • Wikimedia Commons "Directly embedding files from Wikimedia Commons on the fly into an external site ('Deep linking') is considered bandwidth theft and external servers doing so will be permanently blocked after Wikimedia server admins recognize it.... You are always welcome to download files you are interested in for reuse as long as you follow the license conditions provided alongside the files." (from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:First_steps/Reuse)


Sample request for permission

This is designed to be sent by email or as a physical letter. It is merely a suggested letter, volunteers are free to modify it in particular cases, or to use a completely different letter. But any communication requesting this permission ought to be careful to explain clearly just what permission we are asking for.

I am a volunteer with the Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base (ISFDB) which is located at http://www.isfdb.org. The ISFDB is a bibliographic database of works of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and related works of speculative fiction. When we display information about a particular publication (an edition or printing of a particular work) we prefer to display an image of the cover of the work, so that the public can see exactly which edition is being described. We do this by including a URL of a publicly posted image in the database. When the publication page is displayed, using the image found at that URL as an image source for the page display. An example is http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?THLRDFTHRN1972 for an edition of The Lord of the Rings. We also link to images of authors in the same way. However, we only use URLs from sites that have agreed to permit us to do so.
Your site <name of site>, located at <base URL>, has images that would enhance the ISFDB. We would greatly appreciate it if you would permit us to link to those images. The ISFDB is a completely non-profit, volunteer-run organization. We think that it does provide a valuable public service, and does help promote speculative fiction in general. Please let us know if we may display images from your site on our pages by linking to your site. Please copy your response to <official email address> so that the ISFDB as an organization can preserve a record of it.
Thank you
<signature of volunteer>

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