Amazon To Offer Kindle ebooks Via Public Libraries

destinyland writes "Amazon announced this morning that they're making Kindle ebooks available for free in America through 11,000 local public libraries. 'We're thrilled that Amazon is offering such a new approach to library ebook...' said one Seattle librarian, and one Kindle blog listed out the top advantages to having them available in libraries."

Comments

What about 1984?

[AdamJS]

I presume the service will automatically delete the books a week after borrowing?

Re:What about 1984?

[Inner_Child]

Considering it's just Overdrive, which has been around for a while now, yes, libraries have set lending periods. Mine is a choice of 7, 14, or 21 days. Yes, they do automatically get "deleted" (actually they just stop working, at least for ePub titles), but you can re-borrow them if you'd like. The bigger issue is with publishers imposing artificial scarcity on digital titles, forcing libraries to purchase a new copy after it's been borrowed a certain number of times (in order to maintain the same revenue stream they have with dead-tree books, which actually degrade).

Re:What about 1984?

[Inner_Child]

On another note: would you rather they didn't expire so you can pay exorbitant late fees?

Congratulations Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations Amazon! You now offer a service that ALL OF THE OTHER ereader sellers have been able to take advantage of for years! B&N, Sony, Kobo, Bookeen, etc...

Re:Congratulations Amazon

[93 Escort Wagon]

Congratulations Amazon! You now offer a service that ALL OF THE OTHER ereader sellers have been able to take advantage of for years! B&N, Sony, Kobo, Bookeen, etc...

Of course, we don't know what was going on behind the scenes. It could've been analogous to how other digital music retailers (e.g. Amazon) were able to offer DRM-free music before Apple did, because the powers-that-be behind the scenes were trying to weaken Apple's hold on the market.

I wouldn't be surprised if the big publishers were holding out on Amazon for as long as they could because they felt Amazon has too much sway in the current ebook market.

Re:So Amazon is violating copyrights en masse?

[Relayman]

The libraries buy the books they lend, including ebooks. If they buy five copies, they can only lend five copies at a time. So, if 11,000 libraries are lending your book, there should be at least 11,000 sales to you. You imply that you are already publishing electronically, so why don't you already know this?

You should have spent the time typing your long-winded response to actually researching the topic.

Missed One Advantage

[Bob9113]

one Kindle blog listed out the top advantages to having them available in libraries.

It is an interesting blog entry, that points out a bunch of the selfish little things that blogger gets out of it, but he missed one advantage:

It is in the long-term best interests of society to make works of science and the useful arts available for borrowing to all. In fact, broadening the reach of such information is the only reason we suffer copyright to exist in the first place. The profit creators are granted through the right of first sale is just a means to that end.

The amazing part of this story is not the wondrous new opportunity we have to borrow published materials from others after the first sale -- it is the chutzpah of the kleptocracy that kept it from happening on day one. And that selfish little kleptocrat blogger is no better. The point of this is not what it does for you, little man, it is what it does for society.

Re:Is there a list of the libraries?

[Inner_Child]

I've found that the classic search is much better: http://search.overdrive.com/classic/