Book rentals

[Namekuseijin]

netflips

[chongjasmine]

I think book rentals will be a nice way to try out books that you don't usually read.
It is a good way to read books, that are different from your usual interests.
Therefore I am in support of book rentals, at a reasonable price.

[SteveEisenberg]

It used to be (40 years ago?) that US pharmacies would rent bestsellers. This was back when public libraries just bought the books they thought they needed for their permanent collection, so their wait times for current bestsellers were enormous -- if they even allowed such reserves.

Then the libraries started renting multiple copies of bestsellers to better align with patron demand. This commercial web page gives some of the history of the switch from drug stores to libraries:

http://www.brodartbooks.com/why-brod...ge.aspx?id=374

The librarian asked if she could lend the titles and offered to collect the drugstore's books that were still in circulation. The library would collect any money it could and McNaughton would permit book loans, free.

A month later, McNaughton found that the receipts from the drugstore's customers were amazingly high. He concluded that storekeepers had been cheating him but that librarians were honest.

Not too many people have the level of integrity librarians do. How this fits into the prospects for eBook rentals hopefully does not need to be spelled out.

The textbook eBook loan prices I have seen are higher than widely used schemes where you buy the book used and then sell it back to the book store at the end of the semester. Unless someone comes up with stronger DRM, or non-librarian human nature changes, I can't see eBook rental prices of a dollar or two.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

A few days ago, in anticipation of the new Kindles, I was browsing leisurely at Amazon, when I came upon a book I really wanted. Lo and behold, the price was more than $33. I still wanted it, but I admit thattttt not having paid more than $9.99 for a long while, I was taken aback by that price (the book is on esoteric topic on Korean embassies to Japan during the Tokugawa shogunate, probably not a whole lot of readers out there) when I discovered that Amazon offered to rent me the book for a month. Rental fee was much more reasonable, and I will have no problem finishing it in the allocated one month.

Do you think this is the future for books out of the mainstream? This will clearly never catch on for entertainment and reference material, but what about these specialized fields with books starting at $75 (the print version was in that range). Could this even catch on for entertainment, renting a Stephen King for ten days at $1.29?

Yes, I loaded it on to Calibre, but the Apprentice was no help, they have clearly improved you know what.

Is this the textbook rental program? I haven't seen it for fiction books.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by Joykins

Is this the textbook rental program? I haven't seen it for fiction books.

I'm not sure, I don't think any of the fiction books are priced high enough to warrant rentals. The one I rented was hardly of general interest, but I don't believe it is a textbook either. Besides, a one month rental doesn't make sense for a textbook.

[JSWolf]

If I was to be lent an eBook from Amazon, withe the current tools, can the DRM for this lent eBook be stripped?

[Kumabjorn]

See post #1

[Red Alert]

This draws an obvious parallel to movies. Paying a rental for a book is the same as attending the movie house and watching a movie. You only get the material one time and must rely on memories for future review of the movie.

Buy a DVD and you are purchasing the right to watch the movie as many times as you like, just as you can reread a book as many times as you like if own it.

Unless there was a compelling reason I had to purchase a very expensive book, I would choose the rental in the case of a high cover price.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If I was to be lent an eBook from Amazon, withe the current tools, can the DRM for this lent eBook be stripped?

LENT, yes, as in person-to-person lending or library lending.

I have never rented anything so I don't know about that, nor do I know about materials from the Kindle Lending Library for Prime. My guess is that anything that is added to your Kindle content library on Amazon and can be downloaded to K4PC can be stripped.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

I'm not sure, I don't think any of the fiction books are priced high enough to warrant rentals. The one I rented was hardly of general interest, but I don't believe it is a textbook either. Besides, a one month rental doesn't make sense for a textbook.

It might be used as a textbook in a specific type of class, though.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...deId=200690040

Kindle textbooks can be rented for a period typically between 30 and 360 days, providing the flexibility to pay only for the amount of time you need with a book. Titles that are eligible for rental will have a message on the product detail page: "Rent this book." Select the end date for your rental to see the price and complete the transaction by clicking on "Rent now with 1-Click."

[Giggleton]

This is all fine and dandy, but many of us rely on computer chips for memories. As we all know these computer chips allow for mostly perfect recall of information.

If we view technological devices as extensions of the physical, why would you allow a corporate entity to delete information that you have obtained and stored? To me it is similar to forced medication...

Meaning a rental is the same as a purchase.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If I was to be lent an eBook from Amazon, withe the current tools, can the DRM for this lent eBook be stripped?

No. The "tools" will deliberately not strip DRM from AZW4 files (the Amazon rental format).

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No. The "tools" will deliberately not strip DRM from AZW4 files (the Amazon rental format).

Technically, it has nothing to do with the format. While a lot of rentals definitely seem to be AZW4 files (Print Replica—Amazon's fixed-layout format), you can also purchase the very same title—still an AZW4 Print Replica file—and the "tools" will "do what they're intended to do."

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Joykins

LENT, yes, as in person-to-person lending or library lending.

I have never rented anything so I don't know about that, nor do I know about materials from the Kindle Lending Library for Prime. My guess is that anything that is added to your Kindle content library on Amazon and can be downloaded to K4PC can be stripped.

Lent through Amazon, not through Overdrive.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

To me it is similar to forced medication...

Oh no. Now we have to weigh in on fluoridation?

Whatever one thinks about forced medication, book rental is a different topic.