Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live

#1

Post by eng » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 4:35 PM UTC

Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live
amazon.com

Re: Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live

#2

Post by shantanubala » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 4:52 PM UTC

And as usual, people outside of the United States get a sub-par experience.

"At this time, Kindle book lending can only be initiated by customers residing in the United States. If a loan is initiated to a customer outside the United States, the borrower may not be able to accept the loan if the title is not available in their country due to publisher geographical rights."

I'm confident ebooks will become DRM-free in the near future, and when that happens we won't have to worry about all of these nonsensical limitations.

Re: Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live

#3

Post by BBonifield » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 5:02 PM UTC

It's really too bad that Amazon dropped the ball on this. You get to loan a book once, and the recipient only gets two weeks to read it. What a ridiculous implementation of such a great concept.

One of the major things that's kept me away from eBooks is that I can't share them with friends. In the office, we often pass a book around from person to person when we like it, and online lending should be just as simple and straightforward. Instead, we get a restrictive and janky process. Well played Amazon.

Re: Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live

#4

Post by fletchowns » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 5:15 PM UTC

Is Amazon really to blame for the less than ideal lending system? Or is it the book publishers that are responsible for the rules of the lending system?

Re: Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live

#5

Post by weej » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 5:30 PM UTC

BBonifield wrote: post #3

It's really too bad that Amazon dropped the ball on this. You get to loan a book once, and the recipient only gets two weeks to read it. What a ridiculous implementation of such a great concept. One of the major things that's kept me away from eBooks is that I can't share them with friends. In the office, we often pass a book around from person to person when we like it, and online lending should be just as simple an…

I couldn't agree more. Being a Kindle owner, I was really excited with this proposal when it was initially pitched. Amazon took a great idea and implemented it horribly.

It's not clear if this is the publishers or Amazon (out of fear from pubs) imposing such limitations on the lending process.

It really pisses me off that in the digital world with DMCA and DRM you don't have fair use of a product/art you purchase legally. You should be able to disseminate it freely. If I want to loan a friend a music album or book, it should be my right.

Lastly, has Amazon or anyone thought of modifying the DRM to allow ownership transfer? For instance after reading a DRM Amazon book I could transfer ownership to my local library.

Re: Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live

#6

Post by allwein » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 5:38 PM UTC

fletchowns wrote: post #4

Is Amazon really to blame for the less than ideal lending system? Or is it the book publishers that are responsible for the rules of the lending system?

Considering that it's the exact same identical terms as the B&N Nook lending feature, I think that it's the book publishers who are responsible.

Re: Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live

#7

Post by allwein » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 5:39 PM UTC

I think that it's ridiculous that the lent book is unavailable to the original purchaser while it's loaned out. That completely defeats the purpose of an e-book.

Edit: Do the downvoters disagree on the benefits of having a book in electronic form? Or do they think that the restrictions are not unreasonable/ridiculous?

Re: Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live

#8

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 5:39 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live

#9

Post by dave1619 » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 5:40 PM UTC

Can you really loan out a book just once in its lifetime? Or just once every 14 days?

Re: Amazon Kindle book lending quietly goes live

#10

Post by bbatsell » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 5:42 PM UTC

allwein wrote: post #7

I think that it's ridiculous that the lent book is unavailable to the original purchaser while it's loaned out. That completely defeats the purpose of an e-book. Edit: Do the downvoters disagree on the benefits of having a book in electronic form? Or do they think that the restrictions are not unreasonable/ridiculous?

The whole point of this feature is to make e-books behave slightly more like real books. As it stands normally, you can't share your purchased e-book with anyone — it's prohibited by the terms of use you signed and enforced by DRM. This allows you to share your e-book like you would share a real book (well, once), wherein you can't read the book after you've loaned it out because...you don't have the book.