Was Lendink a pirate site?

[artbatista]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Well, I wouldn't go that far. Is piracy simply the unauthorized copying/lending/accessing of a text? Or shall we think of piracy in more ethical/moral terms. Meaning, does every read require some form of compensation to flow from the reader to the writer? If the latter is the case, then these lending sites are definitely facilitating piracy at the very least.

Again you miss the point altogether. These authors AGREED by contract to allow purchasers to lend their books. If I have a contractual right and exercise it, how is that a violation of the contract?

Perhaps the authors should have read the contract before agreeing.

Art

[Blossom]

When you buy a book from Amazon it says on the Detail page if the Lending option in enabled.

You are allowed through Amazon's Lending program to lend the book 1 time for 14 days. The person you are loaning the book to has 7 days to pick it up and 14 days to read during which time that book is inaccessible in your archives. This is a one time deal for each book that has the lending option enable.

If you go to a previous purchased books at the top in yellow banner with black text it says: Loan this book to anyone you choose.

What these sites do is hook you up with a person to borrow your book. You then loan them the book via Amazon's site. It's perfectly legal. You can also request from someone for them to loan you a book.

If you want to do it the old fashion way. Amazon Kindle Forum particularly the romance forum has a Loan Me Thread where you leave your email address and the book you are wanting to be loaned. This is a more messier way to do it. You are opening yourself up to spambots or worms so use a email address you don't care about. A site like Lendle or LendInk would be much safer which is why we need them.

[Fbone]

Mike Cane found a blogger who posted the author's names and their tweets. I counted a little over 100 authors who incorrectly claimed infringement.

I can post a link if the moderators feel it wouldn't promote retribution.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Do these authors behave this way with actual pirate sites?

If they did, they could clear out all piracy within a week.

Well, yeah, apparently they do and did. From what I heard they had just taken down a pirate site. And all jazzed up from their success, they took their pitchforks and torches to a legit site without bothering to research.

Typical mob behavior, even online.

[MikeOxlittle]

This is a pretty interesting situation.

The facts I gathered is that while the site was legal concerning KDP authors who signed up for the 70% plan through KDP, the site culled ALL books from Amazon through an API.

Only problem with that is that some of the books are in Select or the 35% plan and they can opt out of lending, so by culling ALL books, some books that are not set up for lending were listed.

Seems like a lot of the authors are uninformed of not only the lending program but how it works. I think a lot of them thought that their books could be lent an unlimited amount of times, when books lent can only go out once in its lifetime.

In that light, I can see how some of the authors flipped out and they started the witch hunt. Doesn't forgive them for not knowing the agreement they signed, but I sort of see where they are coming from ... well some of them at least.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Mike Cane found a blogger who posted the author's names and their tweets. I counted a little over 100 authors who incorrectly claimed infringement.

I can post a link if the moderators feel it wouldn't promote retribution.

I would love a list of authors who are too stupid to pay attention to the contracts they signed up for.

Originally Posted by MikeOxlittle

The facts I gathered is that while the site was legal concerning KDP authors who signed up for the 70% plan through KDP, the site culled ALL books from Amazon through an API.

A lot of authors don't pay attention to which features you agree to in order to get the 70% rate.

Although if they also included lists of authors who weren't actually participating--where the lending option obviously wouldn't work--yeah, I could see authors getting upset at that. I can't see that it's worth much outcry; that's "oops your book was mistakenly included on a list of lendable books," not "oops your book was mistakenly lent out against your contract terms."

But I suppose "this site has listed our books in the wrong column!!!!" just isn't as rageworthy as "this site is PIRATING our books!"

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by artbatista

Again you miss the point altogether. These authors AGREED by contract to allow purchasers to lend their books. If I have a contractual right and exercise it, how is that a violation of the contract?

Perhaps the authors should have read the contract before agreeing.

Art

So the point of this thread is to lambast the authors for contributing to the shut down of lendink? Or is the point of this thread to discuss whether or not the functions contained within lendink were piracy or not, IMO if the author is not compensated for each reader who has enjoyed what the author has wrote, then that is a pirate read. Whether or not the author has chosen to lend or not lend their books is irrelevant.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by MikeOxlittle

This is a pretty interesting situation.

The facts I gathered is that while the site was legal concerning KDP authors who signed up for the 70% plan through KDP, the site culled ALL books from Amazon through an API.

Only problem with that is that some of the books are in Select or the 35% plan and they can opt out of lending, so by culling ALL books, some books that are not set up for lending were listed.

A lot of the sites set those non-lendable books up with an affiliate BUY link, and allow you to wishlist them should they become lendable at some point in the future. I'm not sure how LendInk handled it. Keeping current on lendability status can be a problem for these sites, though, as books/publishers can move in and out of the program.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

So the point of this thread is to lambast the authors for contributing to the shut down of lendink? Or is the point of this thread to discuss whether or not the functions contained within lendink were piracy or not, IMO if the author is not compensated for each reader who has enjoyed what the author has wrote, then that is a pirate read. Whether or not the author has chosen to lend or not lend their books is irrelevant.

It's not piracy if people use the copy rights you sign over to them. If authors think they are entitled to be paid every time a book is lent, I hate to tell them about these things called libraries...

[odiakkoh]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I would love a list of authors who are too stupid to pay attention to the contracts they signed up for.

Me too. Fbone will you PM me the link?

[Skibble]

Originally Posted by MikeOxlittle

Only problem with that is that some of the books are in Select or the 35% plan and they can opt out of lending, so by culling ALL books, some books that are not set up for lending were listed.

It is my understanding that LendInk was a tool to make it easier for people to find out what their options were to obtain books -- and if lending was one of the available options, to facilitate that. I haven't seen anything to indicate that it was meant to be a curated listing of lendable books only.

I can see why pulling in all results, as opposed to only those available for lending, would be desirable. For one thing, it allows users to confirm lending availability one way or another. If searching for a book title returns a null result, uncertainty remains. Is the book not lendable, or has it simply not been added to the database yet? Did the user input the title wrong, preventing search from recognizing it, or was the title correct? Etc. Listing all books allows users to make sure. They can see the book, and they can see what options are available for reading it.

Which brings me to the point that many of the complaining authors seem to have missed. LendInk's listings included buttons to purchase the books, as well as to request a loan. In cases where a book was not lendable according to its contract, only the purchase button was active; the loan button was not operable. Because of that, authors had nothing to lose and everything to gain by being included in LendInk's search results. Users, upon seeing that the book they wanted wasn't lendable, could use LendInk's purchase link instead. A win for all.

I was not a LendInk user, but the descriptions of how the system worked from people who were users have been consistent, from what I've seen. I feel confident in stating that the authors involved in shutting down this site failed to apply even the most basic forms of logic. LendInk couldn't offer readers anything that wasn't available already, but it could generate more sales for them. These authors bit the hand that was feeding them.

(Edit to Add: If any LendInk users spot an error in this post, please let me know. I welcome corrections. The last thing I want to do is spread bad information!)

[MikeOxlittle]

Originally Posted by Joykins

A lot of the sites set those non-lendable books up with an affiliate BUY link, and allow you to wishlist them should they become lendable at some point in the future. I'm not sure how LendInk handled it. Keeping current on lendability status can be a problem for these sites, though, as books/publishers can move in and out of the program.

So if I got this right, Lendink (and similar sites) extend the Lending Program of Amazon/B&N to a more user-friendly social media site and promote not only the vendors but the authors.

They make some money though by adding their own referral code to the BUY links. So if a user does buy a book through Lendink they get some reimbursement by providing the free, and legal, service.

As Lendink just acts as an intermediary between users and the actual "Lend" is handled by Amazon/B&N, these 35% authors who opt out of Lending have nothing to worry about as Lendink doesn't actually handle the transfer itself.

So in the end, Lendink is doing these authors a favor by giving consumers another source in which to find their books and buy them.

And they had the site shut down ... good job guys!

[MikeOxlittle]

Skibble explains my previous post in a more eloquent way.

I spent about 10-15 minutes trying to get my head around wording everything in my previous post in a logical way .... thinking is hard sometimes.

[Nate the great]

Here's the link everyone wanted:

LendInk taken down by asshole indie authors http://www.2abd.com/politics/copyrig...indie-authors/

[andreabc]

Originally Posted by Skibble

I can see why pulling in all results, as opposed to only those available for lending, would be desirable. For one thing, it allows users to confirm lending availability one way or another. If searching for a book title returns a null result, uncertainty remains. Is the book not lendable, or has it simply not been added to the database yet? Did the user input the title wrong, preventing search from recognizing it, or was the title correct? Etc. Listing all books allows users to make sure. They can see the book, and they can see what options are available for reading it.

Pretty much all books were listed... I think I remember that books that weren't lending enabled had "not available to borrow" instead of "request to borrow" next to the "buy" button. In any case, most of these lending sites have a bit of a hard time keeping up with status changes, so sometimes books that were once lending enabled (but are no longer so) might end up listed "in the wrong column".

I still think that some of the confusion came it not being clear when you searched for a book that the site didn't have any copies listed (if there were no copies, instead of showing a "0", it just said "request to borrow")... But in any case, that's no excuse for attacking before reading the FAQ.