Quote:
Originally Posted by GJN
The lockout period on lent books sort of implies that you won't be able to keep a backup copy of your book on your computer. Or does your nook have to check each time you load or open a book on it whether it's been lent out?
I keep backup copies of everything I buy on my computer in calibre; it's the only way to deal with significant numbers of books until some folder system comes along. If I can't keep backups for B&N books, it's pretty much a deal-breaker for me on an otherwise attractive reader.
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The statement that "you always get it back" implies to me that you never actually transfer *your* copy of the ebook so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to keep a backup copy.
I think it's more likely that the Nook does one of two things-either they 'annotate' the file with a lockout date or they keep a database listing which books they've loaned & when. In either case, once the 'return' date passes you'd once more be able to read the book. (If I were implementing this I'd do it by annotating the file. That way the 'lockout' would remain when you backed up the file, transferred it to another device, etc. But that might be easily defeated by changing the system date on the reader.)
But given the unreliability of people 'returning' the ebook they've borrowed (ask any librarian) I can't see B&N making such a statement unless they somehow simply 'lock' your ebook when you loan it, and automatically unlock it when the lending period expires. Doing that shouldn't prevent you from keeping a backup copy.
Besides, you can (should be able to) back it up before you lend it-which is an argument for storing the lending information in a database on the device. Then, even if you restored the 'unlent' copy it'd still know that you loaned it out. So I don't know how they've implemented this-there are pros & cons to every method I can think of.