Coming Soon for Kindle - lending & more

[TomF]

Originally Posted by Wasabihound

Agree it sucks you can lend a book only once though. Would like that clarified (asked in Amazon discussion group)

In my original post I quoted Amazon:

"Second, later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period."

That's pretty clear. One time, 14 days.

[curstpriest]

Intering article about book piracy:
http://torrentfreak.com/book-piracy-...le+Feedfetcher

[Albright]

Originally Posted by flandroid

With unrestricted lending, you would see a lot of 'core' Kindle users sharing books that might otherwise have been purchased -- especially considering the majority of books is priced at $10 or less.

I think most of us would be happy with something significantly less than unrestricted lending. Maybe we can only lend it to the same account once, and/or maybe we have to wait a reasonable period of time once between lending. But making it so we can only lend a book once, ever, somehow feels even more draconian than the current situation where we can't lend books at all.

From another perspective; public and private libraries and paper book sharing between friends and co-workers has not yet decimated the paper book industry after several centuries.

Also, tammycravit, I really like your reply.

As do I. Here's hoping.

[flandroid]

Originally Posted by Albright

I think most of us would be happy with something significantly less than unrestricted lending. Maybe we can only lend it to the same account once, and/or maybe we have to wait a reasonable period of time once between lending. But making it so we can only lend a book once, ever, somehow feels even more draconian than the current situation where we can't lend books at all.

From another perspective; public and private libraries and paper book sharing between friends and co-workers has not yet decimated the paper book industry after several centuries.

Library use and p-book sharing both have a certain...'effort threshold,' if you will. We are surrounded by people who don't use libraries because you have to get a card, or trudge or drive allllll the way over to the library, and then worry about returning the books on time, which would cost you money, &c. When borrowing paper books, your friend has to remember to lend it to you, or you have to remind them, and you have to remember to return it sometime, or be reminded. This doesn't seem like a lot of effort to me, but I have friends who wouldn't bother with half as much 'work' just to read a book.

Despite claims that Home Taping Is Killing Music, people were still buying music en masse until it became sufficiently easy to not buy it. Even with high speed dubbing on tape decks (man, I'm old), there was a time investment on the part of the sharer and, regardless of how the content was shared (hand to hand or by post), there was some coordination and/or effort involved. You would never have seen thousands upon thousands of people who didn't pay for an album listening to it on their commute the day it was released. Not so now; it's just so much easier. And it has done damage to the recording industry. Some segments of it have adapted better than others, and some are doing better than they were before this all happened, but it took a while.

With the Kindle, no matter how lending is handled, it's likely to be considerably easier (both technically and in the sense that you don't have to leave your seat), which will instantly increase the number of lenders. If, as has been suggested, this is just a first step towards figuring out a good model for lending that works for Amazon, publishers, and readers, it's definitely too soon to be claiming human rights violations (obviously I exaggerate, but look at some of the replies in this thread); this is uncharted territory (even though B&N did it first, it's still too soon to tell), and we should let the dust settle – it hasn't even really been kicked up yet – and see how things look in six months, a year, or more. With a precedent like that set in the music industry, who can blame anyone in the business of selling books for treading very, very carefully into similar waters?

Edit: I think a 'cool-off' period between lending periods is actually a pretty good idea.

[emalvick]

I don't know what the exact solution should be, but I do think the music industry screwed up and the book industry is headed in the same direction albeit more cautiously (which I hope will be better).

As far as lending goes, it really depends on the motivation how it should work. I agree that when a book is lended it should no longer be available to the original owner for the lending period. That is no different than a regular book. However, like a regular book, I think an owner should be able to lend a book multiple times. Ideally, I think it should be unlimited, but at the minimal, I think it ought to be 3 to 5 times.

Perhaps a solution would be for a user to have a list of "friends" they loan to and have that be limited, much like print consumers have with their books.

Contrary to an earlier statement, I don't think lending an ebook will be that much easier than paper lending. Is lending a paper copy that difficult?

As far as the sales go, I just don't see the ebook world with lending and libraries being any different than the print world was with lending and libraries. The part that is different is piracy, and that is there as soon as digital copies exist. Lending, Libraries, etc don't change how much piracy occurs, and piracy affects sales way more than libraries and lending ever will.

The same problem exists everywhere else, which is why DRM doesn't work in music or books. Pirates get around it, and the ethical users that have to deal with it suffer, and if anything it drives people to steal their digital content because of the drm. Things may not be that extreme, but I know that in a few instances that friends of mine with IPods chose to steal their music when the DRM there choked their flexibility with their music. These same friends quickly jumped into buying from Amazon when their music store opened up, and even I (I typically hate digital music period) have on rare occasions used Amazons music service because it is DRM free and the standard MP3 format.

Amazon could learn a lot from themselves on their music model.

[flandroid]

Originally Posted by emalvick

Contrary to an earlier statement, I don't think lending an ebook will be that much easier than paper lending. Is lending a paper copy that difficult?

Is getting out of one's car to buy a coffee or a cheeseburger that difficult? I think you're underestimating the lengths people will go to to avoid exerting effort.

(I don't mean to trivialise the rest of your reply, but I'm at work and considerably busier than I was this morning)

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Wasabihound

It makes sense you can't read a Kindle book you've loaned out - I can't do that with a real book - why should I be able to do it with an ebook.

Because you could, easily. Unlike with paper books you're not handing over the "original", as it were, you're making an electronic copy anyway. It's digital restriction management hard at work, trying hard to bring artificial scarcity to this new world of ebooks.

It would be great if libraries could lend Kindle books (they would need to buy/lease multiple copies) and I bet they would like the ability to automatically get the book back after x days - maybe one day....

Pretty much works that way -- for epubs.

[Tiersten]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Because you could, easily. Unlike with paper books you're not handing over the "original", as it were, you're making an electronic copy anyway. It's digital restriction management hard at work, trying hard to bring artificial scarcity to this new world of ebooks.

The content is what is important here and not the actual delivery mechanism be it physical book or eBook. More than one person would be using the content which you've only paid for once.

At the end of the day, authors and publishers do need to get paid and totally unrestricted copying and lending of books would affect that. The barrier for physical books is that it is a lot of work to duplicate one. That doesn't happen if it is an eBook since you can copy one in a fraction of a second.

I'm okay with the restrictions imposed by having a physical book. You can't use it when somebody else is using it. You're free to do whatever you want with it in terms of lending so you can lend it out multiple times for various amounts of time. If eBooks used a similar system then I'd be happy with it.

[cjottawa]

Barnes & Noble has been marketing their lending feature as a competitive advantage over Amazon and the Kindle.

Amazon's new strategy of offering exactly the same lending policy levels the playing field with limited risk. It's an safe business move. They don't stand to lose much and they do stand to gain users who would otherwise be swayed to the Nook by the lending function.

It does, however, strike me as not true to Amazon's stated goal of being the "the most customer driven company in the world." This is a "me too/play it safe" feature not a "market leader" one.

If B&N wants to complete, they're forced to ante up and offer more flexible lending policies. If they don't, they'll be laughed at like a car company trying to hype their vehicles "because they have fuel injection." Duh. So does every other vehicle.

There may be other issues at play such as publishers licensing rules prohibiting loans exceeding 14-days and the one time limit.

Time and market pressure will tell.

[badbob001]

With unlimited lending, I can easily imagine whole forum threads devoted to people making books available for others. I suspect we will still see this even with one-time lending. I imagine it to be like an one-use coupon that someone makes available on forums and ebay. I wonder if there are any terms in the kindle usage agreement preventing people from selling their single lend.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by badbob001

With unlimited lending, I can easily imagine whole forum threads devoted to people making books available for others. I suspect we will still see this even with one-time lending. I imagine it to be like an one-use coupon that someone makes available on forums and ebay. I wonder if there are any terms in the kindle usage agreement preventing people from selling their single lend.

You made me think of something. How would this work with geo-restrictions? If lending can happen across geographic lines, this feature could become very popular. Even I, one doesn't lend or borrow very often, would like to help someone in another country have access to a book for 14 days.

[desertblues]

I've always wanted to do more with my ebooks; g.e to make a gift of those I'm no longer interested in, or to swap an ebook with a friend.

As for lending :the postive aspect of it is that one can read these Kindle-ebooks on a lot of devices. The book is protected, but the system also has a kind of flexibility through the apps.
And it could give a boost to ereading, as PC-users/iPhoners could try ereading without having to buy an ereader.

Perhaps Amazon could start its own online-library as well.
I'm intrigued how it all will work out.

[Tiersten]

Eh. At the end of the day, it is a nice to have feature but Amazon could have done more with it. Hopefully it is just a starting point for them and in the future they'll expand it. Considering the general attitudes of the various publishers, I doubt it will be easy so I'm not holding my breath on that one.

[luvmy4brats]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

You made me think of something. How would this work with geo-restrictions? If lending can happen across geographic lines, this feature could become very popular. Even I, one doesn't lend or borrow very often, would like to help someone in another country have access to a book for 14 days.

That is a fantastic question. I hope we get the answer to that. I have several friends in different countries that I would be more than willing to share books with.

As for online forums for sharing books, there are a couple out there for the nook. I wouldn't say it was hugely popular, but I've gotten a few books that way (for my nook) and loaned out probably 8 or 9. It's great for popular series if you're quick enough and check back a few times during the day.

[Albright]

Originally Posted by emalvick

These same friends quickly jumped into buying from Amazon when their music store opened up, and even I (I typically hate digital music period) have on rare occasions used Amazons music service because it is DRM free and the standard MP3 format.

In defense of the iTunes Music Store, all of their music is now DRM-free as well, and the AAC format is nowadays almost as ubiquitous as MP3 in terms of hardware support (the Kindle is a notable exception). Since the headphone jack on my iPod stopped working, I've been using a SanDisk Sansa player to listen to my music collection, about two thirds of which is from the iTMS (the remainder coming from CDs or other music stores).