[Koha] Use of Amazon reviews etc illegal?

[m.mason at ytu.edu.au]

Nicole and all:

I just discovered that Jesse Haro reported last 
March that library catalog use of Amazon material 
was forbidden by Amazon as contrary to the terms 
of the Amazon Associates Web Service .

Re: Use of Amazon.com Content in Koha's Catalog

 From : Jesse Haro 
<<mailto:jesse.haro_at_nyob?Subject=Re:%20%20Use%20of%20Amazon.com%20Content%20in%20Koha%27s%20Catalog>jesse.haro_at_nyob> 

Date : Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:54:17 -0700
To : NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU


I have been following the trail of conversation regarding Amazon.com and
thought it worth sharing our recent experience with Amazon.  I
oversee the OPAC environment for Phoenix Public and was the
lead in implementing Amazon product data not only into our OPAC, but also
directly into our bibliographic data for searching. We have implemented
Endeca for our OPAC and have implemented various product elements into the
search index.  Following the release of the Customer Service
Agreement from Amazon this past December, we requested clarification from
Amazon regarding the use of AWS for library catalogs and received the
following response:

"Thank you for contacting Amazon Web Services.  Unfortunately your
application does not comply with section 5.1.3 of the AWS Customer
Agreement.  We do not allow Amazon Associates Web Service to be used for
library catalogs.  Driving traffic back to Amazon must be the primary
purpose for all applications using Amazon Associates Web
Service."

This response came from the support contact link on the AWS help pages. We
are investigating the possibility of establishing a direct relationship
with Amazon, however it appears that using AWS for purposes other than
section 5.1.3 is in violation of their agreement. We have subsequently
removed much of the Amazon content from our OPAC and are looking into
other sources of enriched data.

Jesse Haro, Web Services Manager
Phoenix Public Library

[END OF QUOTE FROM JESSE HARO]

The customer service agreement has since been 
updated -- there does not seem to be a 5.1.3 now, 
and I could not find any express prohibition, but 
someone at Koha needs to officially contact 
Amazon to see if this is still the case. 
Otherwise all the work to access Amazon content 
on Koha OPACs may be a waste of time and its 
implementation may leave libraries open to a lawsuit from Amazon.

It's too bad.  I notice that apart from 'Google 
covers', all the other 'content enriching' 
services such as from Baker and Taylor or Syndetics require payment.

Mike Mason


At Sunday 14/02/2010, you wrote:
>Mike thanks,
>
>I had gone to AWS today and saw that there was no 'private key' which
>is what it used to be called - but that it was now a secret key - so
>glad that you see the same thing as me.
>
>Nicole
>
>On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 6:54 PM,  <mcmlists at people.net.au> wrote:
> > Hi Nicole,
> >
> > My statement that "what we call the Amazon private key is really the Amazon
> > Secret Access Key" was based on the following: I have just set up my Amazon
> > associate ID and AWS access keys in Amazon, and the site described two keys
> > as follows: (this is cut and pasted from Amazon's Associates' "Manage your
> > account" page:)
> > You will need access identifiers to call the Product Advertising API,
> > authenticate requests and identify yourself as the sender of a request. Two
> > types of identifiers are available: AWS Access Key Identifiers (Public and
> > Secret Keys) and X.509 Certificates.
> >
> > The site guides you to set up the Public and Secret keys.  It does not
> > mention a "Private key".  So I assumed that 
> what you referred to in the 3.2
> > manual as a "Private Key" was meant to indicate Amazon's "Secret Key". But
> > perhaps you had something else in mind?
> >
> > Unfortunately I can't test this as I'm on Liblime's Koha Express, which is
> > still back in Koha 3.00.02.012 and has no system preference entries for
> > Amazon reviews or for the Secret/Private key.
> >
> > Mike Mason
> >
> > At Sunday 14/02/2010, you wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I want to confirm that what we call the Amazon private key is really
> > the Amazon Secret Access Key.  If so I want to update the language in
> > the manual and the sys prefs page -but I want to be sure before I do
> > that.
> >
> > Nicole
> > _______________________________________________
> > Koha mailing list
> > Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
> > http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
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