Kindle Unlimited borrow limit is now 20 titles

[tomsem]

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?

Oh wow. I’m going to have to be more careful in expressing informal opinions. It might mystify someone.

[John F]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Oh wow. I’m going to have to be more careful in expressing informal opinions. It might mystify someone.

It's not so much the opinion, it's the posting of misleading information.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by John F

It's not so much the opinion, it's the posting of misleading information.

Not that it is important, but I don’t know what you are talking about.

[John F]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Not that it is important, but I don’t know what you are talking about.

And that's the problem.

[shalym]

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.

What query are you talking about? Pdurrant asked Amazon about this back in 2014, and this is the response he got from them:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Since my memory of a reply from Amazon is being quoted, I thought it best to dig up the original. In response to a back-and-forth between me and Amazon, I got the following official response:

"Hello Mr. Durant,

I am sorry about the confusion caused by my colleagues reply to your query.

In this case, I can confirm that in most cases, Paid Books have on average 6 Licenses and Free books have on average 99 Licenses.

Publishers choose whether they apply digital rights management software (DRM) to their content. There is no limit on the number of times a title can be downloaded to a registered Kindle device or Kindle-compatible device running a Kindle application, but there may be limits on the number of Kindle devices and applications (usually 6) that can simultaneously use a single book. If the limit is less than six Kindles devices or applications for a specific title, you'll see the message "Simultaneous Device usage: Up to X simultaneous devices, per publisher limits" on the website detail page.

This means that your Spouse's, Children's and even your friend's Kindle can be registered to your account and can download and read your books from you Archived items. Provided they do not exceed the limit of licenses.

Therefore, you can buy one copy of a book and have it available to be read on up to six devices (if it is a paid book) and up to 99 devices if it is a free book.

In terms of use, you have purchase a copy of a book with us, and it is your copy. You may authorize any one you wish to read it, but that person's device must be registered to your account to do so."

(bold added)

Hope this helps

Shari

[Little.Egret]

The KU limit has now been raised to 20 on Amazon.UK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/cus...QEND3RFAFNLKU5

[LDB]

I quit reading half way through page one when it went WAY OFF THE RAILS with finger pointing etc.. Not sure why moderators haven't removed all that and cautioned.

Anyway, on topic, why is there a limit? What purpose does it serve, unlike at the public library where someone taking out 100 books at once deprives potentially 99 other people from reading a book? It's not like they have only X number of digital files to download.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by LDB

I quit reading half way through page one when it went WAY OFF THE RAILS with finger pointing etc.. Not sure why moderators haven't removed all that and cautioned.

Anyway, on topic, why is there a limit? What purpose does it serve, unlike at the public library where someone taking out 100 books at once deprives potentially 99 other people from reading a book? It's not like they have only X number of digital files to download.

Not sure, but it could be
1 - harder to accurately track data for Amazon for their own needs and author's if most people downloaded a great quantity at once. They want to track downloads, how much is read versus just borrowed and returned unread, trends, etc.
2 - For those they believe may be pirating, they can prevent some of that easier this way. I know one person on these forums was banned for suspicious activity for extreme borrowing/returning in such a short time period.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by LDB

Anyway, on topic, why is there a limit? What purpose does it serve, unlike at the public library where someone taking out 100 books at once deprives potentially 99 other people from reading a book? It's not like they have only X number of digital files to download.

Books go in and out of KU over time. I believe that if you have a book borrowed you will be able to keep it until you return it so that you have time to finish it even if the publisher pulls the book from KU. Having unlimited borrows would be problematic for that.

[cvkemp]

I use KU a lot I would say that 90% of the books I read are from KU, and I read on average about 80 books a year. Modern TV shows and movies don't interest me.

[janrey]

Originally Posted by John F

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


Must be nice to have retired children.

I shared with my mother before she passed away and no I don't think it is unethical, I don't have children. Actually her kindle was just on my account, I bought it for her.