Kindle Unlimited borrow limit is now 20 titles

[tomsem]

I am not sure how this will affect my borrowing patterns, but the limit was increased recently to 20 (from 10). I do share with some family members, but they don’t seem to be reading much (even though they are all retired and I’m not).

I can see this as useful if you are binge reading a series or two, you can borrow everything at once.

Also there are some books from major publishers/authors that Amazon rotates in and out; you’d be able to borrow them and not worry that they will go away before you have a chance to read them.

[Dr. Drib]

Twenty titles is great!

I may have to rejoin for 6 months for only $30

[John F]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I am not sure how this will affect my borrowing patterns, but the limit was increased recently to 20 (from 10). I do share with some family members, but they don’t seem to be reading much (even though they are all retired and I’m not).

...

You don't consider sharing your ebooks unethical. From Amazon:

Adults are able to share free Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Twitch Prime with Teens in their Amazon Household. They can share eBooks, apps, and games with children.

Must be nice to have retired children.

[Paperbackstash]

I know, and I absolutely love the change

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by John F

You don't consider sharing your ebooks unethical. From Amazon:


Must be nice to have retired children.

Brother, sister, and mother in this case. The Kindles are registered to my account. There is nothing unethical about this, one can register as many Kindles and Kindle apps to an account as you like. Should one of them decide to go on a buying binge, I would be responsible for their purchases.

The Family sharing feature is a way of linking two amazon accounts and being able to share content between those two as well as setting up Child accounts (up to 4 I think) on Kindle or Fire that are more restricted and controlled.

KU subscribed content (or Comixology Unlimited etc.) isn’t part of the family sharing.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Brother, sister, and mother in this case. The Kindles are registered to my account. There is nothing unethical about this, one can register as many Kindles and Kindle apps to an account as you like. Should one of them decide to go on a buying binge, I would be responsible for their purchases.

Looking at the Amazon Kindle Store terms of service:

Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense, or otherwise assign any rights to the Kindle Content or any portion of it to any third party

In response to a query a couple of years back, it was made clear that allowing your family members to read content on your devices is not a permitted use as they do not have a license to read the content. OTOH, I suspect that Amazon is unlikely to go the effort of prosecuting since the cost and resulting bad publicity would be an issue.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Looking at the Amazon Kindle Store terms of service:



In response to a query a couple of years back, it was made clear that allowing your family members to read content on your devices is not a permitted use as they do not have a license to read the content. OTOH, I suspect that Amazon is unlikely to go the effort of prosecuting since the cost and resulting bad publicity would be an issue.

Duly noted, though few people are likely to read the TOS, much less arrive at that conclusion having done so.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by DNSB

In response to a query a couple of years back, it was made clear that allowing your family members to read content on your devices is not a permitted use...

How do they handle the fact that my wife and I live in OUR house, order things using OUR Amazon Prime account, watch Prime videos on OUR TV streaming through OUR Roku, and read things on OUR Kindle? I do not own a Kindle individually. It it OURS - my wife and I. If we want to both use the Kindle by alternating who gets to use the thing at any given time, I don't plan to bend to any demands made by Amazon that we first have to assign ownership to one person and abide by Amazon rules that say the other person can't pick the think up and use it. I don't think even Amazon could be that ludicrous in their rules. The Kindle is community property, owned by the marriage partnership. We don't maintain his and hers libraries on the device. Is there anybody here who actually does that???

[Josieb1]

My husband and I share an Amazon account also. We always have. So one KU subscription covers us both. Amazon know it’s a shared account as our name on the account is both of us.

We both have kindles, in fact we have five kindles registered to our account. We name collections starting with our first names as we read totally different books,

[Deskisamess]

We have several Kindles registered to the one account my husband and I both use. If I lend a Kindle to my elderly mom, and she reads a KU book I've borrowed, I don't think Amazon cares. It may be outside the "letter of the law" but not the "spirit of the law." Now handing spare Kindles out to several friends would be a different story, which I wouldn't do.

Back years ago when I was active on the old Amazon forums, spouses with separate accounts was fairly common. Amazon provided for those couples with the family share thing they did.

My husband and I have always used just one account for our Kindle books. It's never been a problem for us...he doesn't download most of my books, purchased or borrowed, and I usually don't read his choices. He has his own Amazon account, for some purchases, such as gifts he wants to keep secret. But there are no Kindle books on that account.

I never understood the whole "separate account stuff" for married couples. But then, we've been married 44+ years, and it has been a mostly single income life. It's not mine or his, it's ours. When we used paper books, they all sat together on the same shelves.

[John F]

I was just curious about tomsem ethics. In another thread, he said it was unethical to strip DRM from library books (no exceptions), and yet tomsem has no problems sharing his unlimited books with multiple people?

[Barbara1955]

Any Unlimited deals out there?

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by John F

I was just curious about tomsem ethics. In another thread, he said it was unethical to strip DRM from library books (no exceptions), and yet tomsem has no problems sharing his unlimited books with multiple people?

I don't know...he's talking about 3-4 people, not 10. I don't see that as problematic. Books do have simultaneous device limits, 6 usually, which would prevent casual sharing. My Kindle borrows are usually on 2-3 devices, just for my use.

Back a few years ago, Kindle CS would walk users thru the "register shuffle", where you would de-register your Kindle device, and re-register it to another account, in order to download books from that account. That was before Family Sharing, that allowed accounts to be linked.

Now of course, Amazon content is removed when you de-register a Kindle. But back then, the e-ink devices kept their content when de-registered.

It's been a while since I read the current TOS. In the past, it's always been vague enough, to allow for somewhat broad interpretation.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by Barbara1955

Any Unlimited deals out there?

You always get a break if you pay ahead. You can get 12 months for $80.30, which would be $199.88 if paid by the month. That's a decent savings.

24 months is $143.80, instead of $239.76

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by haertig

How do they handle the fact that my wife and I live in OUR house, order things using OUR Amazon Prime account, watch Prime videos on OUR TV streaming through OUR Roku, and read things on OUR Kindle? I do not own a Kindle individually. It it OURS - my wife and I. If we want to both use the Kindle by alternating who gets to use the thing at any given time, I don't plan to bend to any demands made by Amazon that we first have to assign ownership to one person and abide by Amazon rules that say the other person can't pick the think up and use it. I don't think even Amazon could be that ludicrous in their rules. The Kindle is community property, owned by the marriage partnership. We don't maintain his and hers libraries on the device. Is there anybody here who actually does that???

As you said, for those who live in areas where community property is recognized (all of Canada, a relatively small part of the USA), anything purchased during the marriage belongs to both parties equally. That is one of the reasons that I feel Amazon would not try to prevent such usage when the chances are very good that their EULA/ToS/whatever would not survive a court challenge.

My wife and I have separate libraries on our Kobos since our reading interests have a relatively small overlap. I do manage importing, conversion, editing, etc. since we also have different skill sets and she is more than willing to let me sweat over the keyboard.