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Amazon To Let Libraries Lend Kindle Books

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-won't-give-it-back dept.

Last month we reported that Amazon was confronting lenders of Kindle e-books. Today, thebian writes "Amazon announced yesterday that it would allow 11,000 libraries in the US to lend ebooks. The press release doesn't say exactly when this will start. Amazon is trying to speed the adoption of the Kindles. If people are slow to flock to the device the reason is the high prices the publishers cling to. Amazon itself sometimes undercuts Kindle prices, and almost always some booksellers on the Amazon Marketplace undercut the Kindle. There's no indication about what books might be offered through this program."

17 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Nook Color vs. Kindle by Relayman · · Score: 2

    My wife bought me a Nook Color for Christmas. One factor was the ability to download books from our library. For me, it's took late for Amazon; I will never buy a Kindle.

    --
    If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
    1. Re:Nook Color vs. Kindle by garcia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hey, thankfully there are pros and cons for each device and people have a choice between the two major competing devices.

      Some people like the openness of the underlying Android OS on the Nook Color and some people prefer the e-ink and Amazon ease-of-downloading on the Kindle.

      To each their own. Glad you are enjoying yours and you find it the superior device. Me? I prefer old-school books and will continue to do so until they pry my entire library from my cold, dead hands.

    2. Re:Nook Color vs. Kindle by Sechr+Nibw · · Score: 2

      If you're having any doubts, the Nook Color can be rooted to become an Android tablet, and have the Kindle for Android app installed. That means the device you have could still be used that way, if you were so inclined.

      Personally, I've been using Kindle on my iPhone, and have collected a library of about 125 books already - so I understand if you've got a Nook library already and wouldn't want to switch!

    3. Re:Nook Color vs. Kindle by Xian97 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      For the very reason that you noted, Amazon has allowed this feature. People were going to other e-readers because of the Kindle lacking library lending. Now they are taking away one of the main reasons to buy from the competition. It may be too late for you, but there are a lot more people that were on the fence that were waiting for this feature before making a purchase.

      I like the Nook color, a Coworker has one, but for reading I prefer an e-ink display instead of the Nook Color display.

    4. Re:Nook Color vs. Kindle by gotpoetry · · Score: 2

      The Nook E-Ink reader is really good as well and it allows library downloads too.

    5. Re:Nook Color vs. Kindle by geekoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Have you tried a Kindle?

      Yes, for a long time I thought they would need to pull my books from my dead hands. Then I got my wife a Kindle. ANd after giving it a try, I fell in love with it and got my own.

      Now? I don't even want to pick up a paper book. IN fact, I am considering replacing my favorite books with eBook and then selling my paper books.

      The question seems to me to be: Do you like reading stories? or is it the idea of reading you really like? Because holding onto paper just to hold onto paper is an emotional decision that has nothing to do with reading. Not that there is anything wrong with that, just be honest with yourself.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    6. Re:Nook Color vs. Kindle by DrXym · · Score: 2
      You shouldn't have to convert a book published in a standard format into a proprietary format and risk screwing up or losing formatting in order to read a book. It would be a relatively simple matter for Amazon to support EPUB but they choose not to. After all EPUB is after all basically XHTML content, CSS and some meta data zipped up and not far removed from what the device is already capable of supporting in random HTML files or even Mobipocket.

      I expect eventually they'll be compelled by market forces to do it. Though I doubt they'll implement any DRM such as Adobe Digital Editions or if they do it will be proprietary. I certainly see no reason to give them a pass for a blatant attempt to lock people into their own format until it happens.

      The interesting part will come when Amazon shoves out an Android tablet as they're undoubtedly intending to do. Will they stop rival ereaders appearing on their app store? Will Amazon become another Apple dishing out the same kind of control freakery and anticompetitive hurdles to the competition? If this comes to pass will Amazon recognize the blatant hypocrisy considering the boo hooing when they received similar treatment at the hands of Apple?

  2. Better hurry before the horse leaves the barn by woolpert · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As it stands now savvy users can simply check out a epub library book to their PC with Adobe Digital Editions, seamlessly remove the DRM with calibre, then convert and upload to their Kindle with one-button via your Kindle's free email address. If Amazon doesn't make their service work without a PC I've gained nothing.

    I almost died of the analysis-paralysis suffered looking for an ebook reader, and finally settled on the Kindle as the best bang for the buck today. While I feel epub is the future (especially now that google has weighed in) with calibre I Just Don't Care.

    1. Re:Better hurry before the horse leaves the barn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      FYI : calibre has nothing to do with DRM, it's an external script that removes DRM.

    2. Re:Better hurry before the horse leaves the barn by CaptBubba · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No it is only unethical if you don't delete the book from your kindle when your check out period expires.

      Illegal is a gray area because it is being done solely for compatibility reasons.

      The reverse is possible too. I buy amazon ebooks, strip the DRM, convert them to ePub, and load them only my Nook. I use the nook heavily for library reading as well. If this lending program had been in place a couple months ago I would have kept the kindle I won (instead a sold it and bought the Nook).

    3. Re:Better hurry before the horse leaves the barn by CaptBubba · · Score: 3, Informative

      Bullshit:

      MGE UPS Systems v. GE Consumer Industrial

      "Merely bypassing a technological protection that restricts a user from viewing or using a work is insufficient to trigger the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. The DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners."

      If you stripped the book's DRM then SOLD IT, you will get nailed. Bypassing DRM to use the work is (currently) legal.

  3. Be more like MS by spinkham · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is a great thing. Amazon is learning. In the past Amazon has been too much like Apple, with their being a controlling dick about everything upfront.

    They should learn from MS, and be kind upfront, only to be a controlling dick later after they have huge market share.

    --
    Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
    1. Re:Be more like MS by spinkham · · Score: 2

      Actions in a market with an already established leader and have to compete on merits are much different from greenfield markets where you want to be the market leader.

      Yes, I do like Amazon more then my comment implies, but I am highly skeptical about how DRM and ebooks will play out. By the time Amazon started selling DRM-free mp3s, it was already certain that that was the only winning strategy. Not so yet with DRM ebooks.

      I don't think Amazon is evil, but then again I don't think Microsoft is (or was) evil. They are both just trying to do their best to maximize their market share and stock price, which is the legal obligation of a publicly traded company.

      No matter your feelings on the issue, you must read Seth Godin's post about market forces:
      http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/04/the-free-market.html

      --
      Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
    2. Re:Be more like MS by JasperHW · · Score: 2

      which is the legal obligation of a publicly traded company.

      How does this nonsense keep getting trotted out? IANAL, but my understanding is that in the preamble of the ruling for the Dodge v Ford case (meaning not the legally binding part), the judge included a line finding that companies were for designed for profit and not charity.

      "Among non-experts, conventional wisdom holds that corporate law requires boards of directors to maximize shareholder wealth. This common but mistaken belief is almost invariably supported by reference to the Michigan Supreme Court's 1919 opinion in Dodge v. Ford Motor Co."[1]

      "Dodge is often misread or mistaught as setting a legal rule of shareholder wealth maximization. This was not and is not the law. Shareholder wealth maximization is a standard of conduct for officers and directors, not a legal mandate. The business judgment rule [which was also upheld in this decision] protects many decisions that deviate from this standard. This is one reading of Dodge. If this is all the case is about, however, it isn’t that interesting."[2]

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Company

      For the record, I agree with the rest of your post.

  4. What I wonder... by mdm-adph · · Score: 2

    ...is will Amazon allow other devices to check out these books as well? That's one good thing about the existing EPUB/Overture system -- it doesn't restrict to what device you can download your books to.

    --
    It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  5. Huh, what's that again? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    Amazon is trying to speed the adoption of the Kindles. If people are slow to flock to the device the reason is the high prices the publishers cling to.

    Okay, I agree e-book prices are set artificially high. But where, exactly, did the rest of this come from? The Kindle 3 is Amazon's best-selling item ever - more people bought it than bought the best-selling Harry Potter tome. And we've all read the news that Amazon's e-books are already outselling hardcover books, which isn't too shabby given the few years Kindle has even existed.

    And while I am happy there are competing products out there... I see a lot of Kindles on the train, and quite a few iPads (although fewer iPads than Kindles I'd guess). If there are riders with Nooks and Sony Readers, they're keeping them well-hidden. So it seems unlikely the article was drawing a more narrow distinction, say between the Kindle and some hypothetical better-selling competitor.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  6. Amazon isn't supplying the books by sirwired · · Score: 2

    The books (and the check-out system) are being supplied by an existing ePub-based libary book lender, OverDrive. One can guess that libraries will not have to buy Kindle-specific books separate from the ePub-lendable copies of the books they already get from the same vendor. As long as the number of copies outstanding at any one time is consistent, I can't imagine the publishers really care which format they are in.