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[comox]

Finding good album artwork can be time consuming.

I prefer album art that has a clear image with a resolution between 600x600 and 800x800 and a size about 50 - 100k.

Using the "Get from Internet" feature usually returns a mixed bag of resolutions, sizes, and image quality. Often no good enough images are offered. Ditto for using Google image search.

I stumbled on a source of consistently good quality 640x640 images. Spotify seems to have put a lot of effort into curating their album artwork. It is very rare to find better album artwork than that used by Spotify.

I have created a custom Link for searching for Spotify artwork as follows:
Base URL: https://www.google.com/
Search URL: https:////www.google.com//search?q=spotify [Artist]+[Album]&tbm=isch

This search almost always offers excellent artwork as the first image in the list.

[Wheaten]

or these will do the same. 640x640, 600x600, 500x500
https:////www.google.com//search?q=tidal [Artist]+[Album]&tbm=isch
https:////www.google.com//search?q=qobuz [Artist]+[Album]&tbm=isch
https:////www.google.com//search?q=deezer [Artist]+[Album]&tbm=isch

[BryanC]

With the price of disk space nowadays I just grab the highest quality artwork available. Unfortunately this doesn't usually coincide with the largest filesize/dimensions, as you point out. There are a lot of well-meaning individuals out there scanning cover art (especially into YADB) that don't know what they are doing in regards to descreening and saturation. So the highest quality scans tend to have moire effects, light bleed, and/or under/oversaturated colors.

If I can't find it via YADB then I turn to Discogs and then Google (usually from Spotify/Amazon).

But I agree, I wish that the YADB was better curated, maybe with 2-3 filesize "tiers" that could be automatically chosen, 500x500, 500x500-1000x1000, and >1000x1000 or something like that. I just redid a whole slew of mine and was thinking the whole time, why are my cover art selections not helping train YADB?

[comox]

or these will do the same. 640x640, 600x600, 500x500
https:////www.google.com//search?q=tidal [Artist]+[Album]&tbm=isch
https:////www.google.com//search?q=qobuz [Artist]+[Album]&tbm=isch
https:////www.google.com//search?q=deezer [Artist]+[Album]&tbm=isch

Good to know, thank you.

[comox]

But I agree, I wish that the YADB was better curated, maybe with 2-3 filesize "tiers" that could be automatically chosen, 500x500, 500x500-1000x1000, and >1000x1000 or something like that. I just redid a whole slew of mine and was thinking the whole time, why are my cover art selections not helping train YADB?

I did not know YADB was the source for "Get from Internet" and I agree it is a mess.

I wonder if Matt could make "Get from Internet" configurable so we could choose a different source like Spotify? This would save a bunch of clicks.

[Wheaten]

mmmm, for some reason I don't think that streaming services will appreciate that JRiver makes money over the backs of Tidal, Qobuz or Spotify. By ripping their album art.

[JimH]

Wheaten,
JRiver isn't making money from the album art.
and
It isn't their art.

[JimH]

I did not know YADB was the source for "Get from Internet" and I agree it is a mess.

It's all user submitted so it's "your" mess.

It uses a voting system though, so the "best" art rises to the top.

If you want to vote, do them one at a time and choose the best, in your opinion.

Largest is not always best.

[Wheaten]

Not what I meant. JRiver is a commercial application. By adding resources form different parties, without any consent you will be guilty of  copyright infringement. It' isn't their art...... correct, most of them are owned by the photographers where the record company pay's for usage.
If you leave it to be configured by the user, so we can enter a whatever URL it's OK.

[Gl3nn]

https://www.albumartexchange.com/

[JimH]

The art usually belongs to whoever published the CD.  This might be a record label or a musician.  They may have paid a photographer, designer, etc. but they usually own the rights to use it with the CD.

When you rip a CD, presumably you have bought it and acquired the rights to use it.  You could scan the cover art and probably not violate anyone's rights.  Downloading it from the Internet is sometimes more convenient.  If you're only using the ripped CD and the downloaded art for your own collection, I think it's harmless.

[thecrow]

I use fanart.tv.

e.g. https://fanart.tv/artist/5441c29d-3602-4898-b1a1-b77fa23b8e50/bowie-david/?section=albumcover

[Wheaten]

Indeed, If I download a cover for my own purpose, via as example Google, the responsibility is with me. Strictly I am still breaking the copyright law as the cover I download is not the copy of my CD/cover, but some-one else copy, for which I didn't pay a fee.
As this is a very grey area, people will never get courted, as it is impossible to prove.

But my response was on the suggestion to hard-code a Spotify URL in JRiver without any agreement or contract with Spotify, JRiver will break European copyrights. It's just a warning/heads up as I really don't care, I won't get the fine.

As side note:
The ripping of CD's, is only legal (Europe) since 2014, before that date it was against the law. (Section 296ZE of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988). Funny part here, in the Netherlands it was always allowed to have a copy of your own music, even if you didn't own the source, so the source could even be internet/usenet (Movies and Music). This became also illegal in 2014, you need to own the source and downloading of content became illegal.

[comox]

It's all user submitted so it's "your" mess.

It uses a voting system though, so the "best" art rises to the top.

If you want to vote, do them one at a time and choose the best, in your opinion.

Largest is not always best.

Not so simple. I'm fussy and I like consistency. It seems Spotify has set some standards that their curators follow and I like their taste. With YADB you have thousands of contributors each with their own standard.

[comox]

https://www.albumartexchange.com/

Looks very promising. I'll create an account and try it. Thanks!

[comox]

But my response was on the suggestion to hard-code a Spotify URL in JRiver without any agreement or contract with Spotify, JRiver will break European copyrights. It's just a warning/heads up as I really don't care, I won't get the fine.

I was not suggesting a hard coded solution. I was thinking of something like MC's configurable Links. MC would use whatever art is selected by the user from the user configured search.

[Wheaten]

Indeed that would do the trick without any infringement.
in the cover popup custom urls's and some of the JRiver tags to use like <album> <albumartist>

[GaryG45]

Besides albumartexchange, I've used PerfectTUNES https://www.dbpoweramp.com/ and Album Art Downloader https://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/.  Album Art Downloader has been so-so, but it did find cover art for some of my older vinyl. I looked at Bliss https://www.blisshq.com/ but never tried it.