lending in a household question

[brunseye]

Hi, I think I know the answer to this but I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything. My girlfriend and I both have Kindle 3s. We thought we might be able to share books using the new Lending feature, but in our extensive libraries, only *one* book is approved to be lent.

Combining our accounts would be logical, but impossible according to Amazon.

The only solution would *seem* to be either:

a) de-authorize one person's account and then link both Kindles to the other person's account. That's not a great solution as we've both spent plenty of money on books which would then be lost (until you deauthorized and reauthorized back to that account, which is a waste of time).

b) de-DRM the books, which I believe is impossible with a Kindle 3 using a Mac.

Am I missing a solution? All I want to do is be able to share books I *bought* with my partner!

Thanks!
K

[abookreader]

Welcome to MobileRead

This board has a policy of not providing direct links or information on how to remove DRM. Google Apprentice Alf Blog and read about DRM issues there for your answers.

[JaylieG]

you could always switch kindles with each other to read other books..

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by brunseye

Am I missing a solution? All I want to do is be able to share books I *bought* with my partner!

c) Temporarily deregister the Kindle you want to read upon from the original account, reregister to the account with the desired book long enough to download a copy encoded for that Kindle, then switch the registration back so you can continue with your regular bookbuying habits.

On actual hardware Kindles, the DRM is keyed to the device, not the account (unlike K4Apps which use a combination of both), so you'll still each be able to read your own purchased books, as well as your partner's "lent" books without any problems.

This is Amazon's unofficial way of allowing families to pool their books into a household library.

Hope this helps, and welcome to MobileRead!

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by brunseye

b) de-DRM the books, which I believe is impossible with a Kindle 3 using a Mac.

Am I missing a solution? All I want to do is be able to share books I *bought* with my partner!

Thanks!
K

You can remove the DRM from the books you've both bought, even with a Mac. Apprentice Alf is your friend. And then you will have the full use of the books you BOUGHT.

Going forward, it would simplify things if you bought all your eBooks on a single Amazon account and registered both Kindles to it. Or you may discover that the ease of repatriation of your books is such that you don't bother. Currently, my wife and I share a single Amazon account for eBooks, though we have separate ones for everything else. The ONLY reason for the share is to allow for instant gratification purchases. All others get sideloaded after cleaning.

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by JaylieG

you could always switch kindles with each other to read other books..

This would be the easiest solution, I think. But, I couldn't do the swapping of devices. Just one of my little OCD things. If it's my device, I want to be the only one who plays with it.

I'd just have the single account that's shared across the two Kindles.

[brunseye]

Thanks for the welcome and for all the quick replies!

-AT Drake, I thought that might be possible but when I called Amazon they said I'd lose the books, much like synching with iTunes. They even asked their IT people to check for me. I didn't try it because I didn't want to risk "losing" my books until I re-registered back (FYI I had a Sony eReader, bought tons of books on that, smashed my eReader accidentally and switched to a Kindle only to find all the books I bought couldn't be transferred. I since discovered a way, but the thought of losing them all again even temporarily wasn't appealing). I would have tried it I suppose BUT...

CRussel's suggestion to consult Alf worked like a charm... I'd tried a thousand ways all day, even learning the basics of altering scripts which I've never done before... and Alf's way worked perfectly. MANY thanks.

I'm a published writer myself so I AM very sensitive to issues surrounding DRM, but until they improve the "Lend" feature, it would seem I'll have to crack my own books in order to lend them in my household.

Thanks guys,
K

[abookreader]

for future reference - presently you can move your Kindle between accounts at will. Ownership of the books belongs to the account, not the Kindle. But any books that you have ON a kindle will remain there when you de-register the device unless you manually remove them.

On your Manage My Kindle page, if you have zero Kindles/Apps/Kindle for Mac etc registered then your list of Kindle books will disappear. But they return once you re-register a Kindle to that account.

And again, welcome to MobileRead

[FF2]

I also believe I've read that if you make backup copies of your kindle books from the kindle to a computer, even if you change accounts, those books can still be restored and read - but I'd verify that before going full speed ahead.

[brunseye]

I don't think so if they're DRMed to one account... that would be the same as drag-and-dropping between Kindle accounts, which I know you can't do. (If I understand you correctly).

[ATDrake]

Glad you got everything sorted out.

Hardware Kindle files are DRM-ed to the Kindle device, not the account. Unlike K4App files which are keyed to both device and account and become unusable if either does not "match", they will still work on the device even when the account is switched.

This worked for me back when I was still doing it late last year* before the K4Mac liberation tools were written, at which point it became easier to strip and sideload my already d/led books instead of going into the Manage Your Kindle page and d/ing fresh copies one-by-one.

Possibly Amazon might have changed something in the meantime.

* I keep more than one Amazon account, because the number of promotional free books offered can be overwhelming and I don't like to clutter up my main account which I keep paid purchases upon.

[techWHAM]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

c) Temporarily deregister the Kindle you want to read upon from the original account, reregister to the account with the desired book long enough to download a copy encoded for that Kindle, then switch the registration back so you can continue with your regular bookbuying habits.

On actual hardware Kindles, the DRM is keyed to the device, not the account (unlike K4Apps which use a combination of both), so you'll still each be able to read your own purchased books, as well as your partner's "lent" books without any problems.

This is Amazon's unofficial way of allowing families to pool their books into a household library.

Hope this helps, and welcome to MobileRead!

This is the solution. Just do this.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by brunseye

Thanks for the welcome and for all the quick replies!

CRussel's suggestion to consult Alf worked like a charm... I'd tried a thousand ways all day, even learning the basics of altering scripts which I've never done before... and Alf's way worked perfectly. MANY thanks.

Thanks guys,
K

Welcome to MobileRead, and I'm glad I was able to help. This is a good place and we all work together to keep it that way.

[brunseye]

Much appreciated all!