Quote:
Originally Posted by AlbertaCowboy
I'm a little shaky on the legality of this idea, (although I think it's brilliant).
Theoretically, could a library buy an eReader, setup an Amazon (or Kobo or what-have-you) account under the Library's name, purchase books for that reader and then publically lend the reader with individually purchased ebooks loaded?
Could that library then purchase and authorize five readers to simultaneously allow that one purchased book to be loaded and lent? As I understand DRM (Adobe anyways) can't a purchased book legally be on a couple of authorized devices without copyright infringement?
Surely the various "you've licensed this book, not bought it" agreements would disallow the library lending of the physical ereader even though the loaded book was legally purchased for said ereader?
|
It isn't so much theoretical because it is being done, although fairly quietly. As long as it remains small scale, I don't know if the Publishers will attempt to stop it but if it takes off as an idea all bets are off. If you Google you can find the blogs of a couple of library programs which have implemented loaner readers with eBooks loaded.