Kindle book lending - cheating

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by RainingLemur

Account sharing now against the law? I had heard about this happening with Netflix earlier this week... While it makes some sense, it still strikes me as stupid overall.

One thing to consider is that not only does each company have a different definition of what constitutes account sharing, the violation has to be pretty blatant to qualify. In other words, Amazon allows multiple devices that they KNOW are not all being used by one person. While it's not tested yet, it could be interpreted that Amazon has family-type sharing enabled and permitted because of the way it works, despite the legalese in the TOS. eBook clubs consisting of several non-related people would be seen as a violation.

iTunes allows multiple computers/devices. Napster allows multiple computers/devices (although I'm on an older plan and they've changed so it may not be true for newer accounts). Netflix allows access from multiple computers/devices...

Small-scale family or household-type sharing isn't really at risk, nor is it intended to be. They're after bigger fish. The state/local prosecution doesn't have the money to throw at "grey-area" cases. They're only going to spend money on the real problems.

[Djehuty]

I just tried to do the de-register/re-register trick, so that I could share some Kindle books with my mother. It seems Amazon has taken steps to prevent this. Everything was going just fine until I re-registered the Kindle to her account, at which point everything I had put on it vanished, including collections. In fact, EVERYTHING vanished, even her Kindle user's guide.

[yijiao]

if you didn't care about the ethics of it you would just download pirated books

[Ditchleyportrait]

i thought you could lend books to family members. oh, i see. on one registered account you can. well, there is this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...deId=200549320

you can lend a book to anyone even if he/she doesn't have a kindle for 14 days (US)

[abookreader]

Originally Posted by Djehuty

I just tried to do the de-register/re-register trick, so that I could share some Kindle books with my mother. It seems Amazon has taken steps to prevent this. Everything was going just fine until I re-registered the Kindle to her account, at which point everything I had put on it vanished, including collections. In fact, EVERYTHING vanished, even her Kindle user's guide.

odd. I just tried it. All my books are fine.

[Sonny Blount]

Originally Posted by Djehuty

I just tried to do the de-register/re-register trick, so that I could share some Kindle books with my mother. It seems Amazon has taken steps to prevent this. Everything was going just fine until I re-registered the Kindle to her account, at which point everything I had put on it vanished, including collections. In fact, EVERYTHING vanished, even her Kindle user's guide.

Everything in collections disappears, books not in collections don't.

If you are going to be swapping accounts you can't use collections.

[abookreader]

When you guys say everything disappears - are these Amazon .azw or topaz books that still have the DRM etc? All my books on my Kindle are Calibre managed into .mobi books, put into collections. So they really are more like personal documents in the mindset of Amazon. They definitely do not disappear when I move them to a different account.

I'm also really surprised to hear this because after the whole 1984 thing Amazon made the promise to never remove a book from a Customer's Kindle without their permission as it also removes notes etc.

My Mom's Kindle is all Amazon drm'd files. I don't think she uses Collections because I don't think she'd know how. But she's certainly never said anything to me about her books disappearing when I move her Kindle to my account to give her a book.

If I get some time today I'll do a bit more testing with my old Kindle. I don't want to risk the K3 losing files, I've spent way too much time as it is making it look exactly how I want.

[Djehuty]

Originally Posted by Sonny Blount

Everything in collections disappears, books not in collections don't.

If you are going to be swapping accounts you can't use collections.

Ah, thanks, that explains it. More Amazon weirdness.

[aspen806]

I haven't given out my account info to a friend but we have traded Kindles in order to read books that the other one has bought.

[Sonny Blount]

Originally Posted by abookreader

When you guys say everything disappears - are these Amazon .azw or topaz books that still have the DRM etc? All my books on my Kindle are Calibre managed into .mobi books, put into collections. So they really are more like personal documents in the mindset of Amazon. They definitely do not disappear when I move them to a different account.

I'm also really surprised to hear this because after the whole 1984 thing Amazon made the promise to never remove a book from a Customer's Kindle without their permission as it also removes notes etc.

My Mom's Kindle is all Amazon drm'd files. I don't think she uses Collections because I don't think she'd know how. But she's certainly never said anything to me about her books disappearing when I move her Kindle to my account to give her a book.

If I get some time today I'll do a bit more testing with my old Kindle. I don't want to risk the K3 losing files, I've spent way too much time as it is making it look exactly how I want.

The books are still there, but the appearance of the collections in the menu seems to be tied into the account.

When you switch back to the account you made the collections in, all the titles reappear instantly without downloading.

So nothing is deleted in collections when switching accounts, you just can't see them when in a different account to the one they were made in.

Although I haven't done this for a few months so it is possible that Amazon might have fixed this but how many people would be informing them of this problem.

[Ditchleyportrait]

perhaps amazon won't keep your books forever, but then again, neither can you.

[DiapDealer]

perhaps amazon won't keep your books forever, but then again, neither can you.

I'll settle for keeping them for my lifetime... which I can practicle guaran-damn-tee I've already arranged.

[abookreader]

So nothing is deleted in collections when switching accounts, you just can't see them when in a different account to the one they were made in.

thanks. That makes sense. I wonder though if you just need to fiddle with the Display options -- switch to "Display by Title" to make the books appear.