I wonder if a dollar value could be assigned to the free service that Amazon.com unintentionally provides by keeping a library of the album art for nearly every CD ever issued. I’ve probably copied hundreds of CD cover images from Amazon.com to fill out my MP3 collection, and I have obviously never paid a dime for any of them.

There are plenty of ways to access Amazon.com’s library of album art without even visiting the site directly through various applications and Web sites. (See here, here, or here.)

AllCDCovers is trying to build a business around offering album art, but Amazon.com is easier to use.

Amazon.com facilitates this usage by allowing customers to upload product images. For most CDs where Amazon.com has only a thumbnail of the album art, customers have uploaded full sized versions that you can download instead.

Some enterprising economics graduate student should figure how much the service is worth and write a paper on it.