

Amazon to add "lending" feature to Kindle - ajg1977
http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx1G2UIO9PJO50V&displayType=tagsDetail

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michaelchisari
I recognize that I'm posting an article by Cracked here, but anybody who's a
regular reader knows that Cracked hits the nail on the head at least 2% of the
time. They recently had an article about the future and artificial scarcity
(using a colorful acronym), and this is a perfect example.

You don't have to "lend" books, you can just make a digital copy and give it
to your friend. Anything less than that is software and hardware that is
purposely crippled in order to manufacture an artificial scarcity.

[http://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-
will-b...](http://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-will-be-
ruled-by-b.s..html)

\--

 _#4 To Stay Afloat, Businesses Have to Pretend Unlimited Goods are Limited_

A. Why can't the library just buy as many digital copies as are needed for the
customers, and keep them forever, if they don't naturally degrade?

B. Wait a second. It's just a digital file. Why not just buy one copy, and
just copy and paste it for every customer who wants to read it?

C. Wait a second. Why do you need the library at all? Why can't a customer
just buy a copy from the publisher and "lend" copies to all of his friends?

D. Wait a second. If no printing and binding needs to be done, why do you need
the publisher? Just buy it directly from the author.

E. Waaaaait a second. Why buy it? Once the author makes one copy available,
why can't everyone just grab it for free?

~~~
jules
F. Waaaaaaaaait a second. Why would the author write a book of which he can
only sell 1 copy? There is no book.

~~~
michaelchisari
Regardless of whether human creativity is intrinsically bound to economic
reward (I would strongly argue that it isn't), the fact of the matter is that
you can't make the case that what we're dealing with _isn't_ a matter of
artificial scarcity.

~~~
jonhohle
The true scarcity is the clever/creative author, which was previously
monetized by selling less scarce physical artifacts of the author's work. This
doesn't decrease the value of the author, however they are stuck finding
another way to capitalize on their ability.

Software did it by putting software behind services, not allowing copies to be
distributed to the end users. Perhaps authors can figure out something
analogous.

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ecaron
As long as the publishers have a say, this feature doesn't matter. Don't
believe me? Look at the Nook. I've bought over 30 books on it, 2 of them have
the LendMe feature.

For books I expect to share and re-read, I'm back to the physical copy. The
only new ebooks I'm getting are the disposable fiction stories; which is
probably the business model Amazon/BN have in mind and why we're still years
away from a reasonable digital reader solution.

~~~
jonhendry
It's a feature list checkbox. Now Amazon can say they also have a lending
feature, and the Nook loses that advantage.

The more important news, to me, is that they're now going to let you get
subscribed magazines and newspapers in the kindle apps. Right now those only
work with kindle hardware.

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dlsspy
Why can't we model it like a real book? Even if they limit it to owner ->
borrower -> owner, it'd be great to just not have time limits. A market will
be created in any case.

~~~
xiongchiamiov
I've never really understood this limitation. It doesn't exist for physical
books (of which I've bought plenty), and it's the one thing that held me back
from buying a Nook.

~~~
ghshephard
First - the publishers are profit maximizing, and they would prevent you from
lending your physical books if they could. (In fact, they weren't big fans of
Public Libraries when they first started springing up)

Second - The difference between a physical book and a eBook is that (A) you
carry your _entire_ library with you all of the time and (B) your books are
never lost/damaged.

I'm one of the 5% outliers who actually finds DRM encumbered eBooks
(significantly) more useful than physical books - I never lose them, never
have to move them, they never take up space, I never have to dispose of them,
and can read them anywhere, any time.

~~~
docgnome
Problem I have with that is that they may be more useful... right up until
version X of some new reader comes out that, Oh I'm sorry, doesn't support the
older DRM encumbered eBooks so you can just buy them again if you ever want a
newer device. Not really a problem with physical books.

~~~
richardw
Paper books only come on the original device and can't be upgraded for free as
printing technology improves. No backup. I'm pretty sure most tablets (and
many phones) that emerge in the next year will have a Kindle app.

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seancron
The main problem that I have with the Kindle is not the lack of lending. What
I want more than anything for the Kindle is support for ePub books, including
DRMed ePubs.

The Kindle would be enormously useful to me if I could navigate to my
library's website, check out an eBook, and read it right on my Kindle.

~~~
stevenbedrick
If your library is anything like mine, supporting it would mean that Amazon
would have to add support for Adobe's "Digital Editions" DRM scheme- which
strikes me as somewhat unlikely, unfortunately (and by "somewhat unlikely", I
mean that I'll be able to write a Duke Nukem' Forever review using TextMate 2
long before the Kindle supports ADE).

This was actually a (small) part of my thinking when I was trying to decide
whether and which eBook reader to get. I ended up going with one of the new
Sony models, in part because I knew it would work with my library's eBook
system.

For whatever it's worth, though, breaking Adobe's DRM is trivial, as is
converting the resulting unencrypted ePub file to a MOBI file, which, if I'm
not mistaken, can be read on a Kindle. Your personal legal or moral mileage
may vary, but from a technical standpoint it's pretty easy.

~~~
jonhendry
Amazon could always come up with their own system for libraries to lend kindle
books.

Which would probably make a lot of sense at this point, given all the free
reader apps they provide on various devices.

Hell, the system could be pretty sweet. Look up a book at Amazon, and Amazon
could determine your local library system based on your address, check the
ebook 'inventory' of that library, and if a copy is available, offer a library
loan as an option. You wouldn't even have to go to the library website.

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rwhitman
Most of my personal library is comprised of books I was given free or bought
used in the $.50 - $6.00 range. On average I've read about 20% of each. What I
can't get around with the Kindle is the idea of paying $10 for a digital copy
of something I could find either for free or really cheap, that I probably
won't even read anyway. Not to mention you can't give away or sell a copy of a
kindle book to someone else after you're done.

Oddly enough though I don't have the same gripe with the apple App Store...

~~~
sliverstorm
One wonders then why you do not resent the iTunes store. After all, you can
get vinyls and cassette tapes for next to nothing at thrift stores these days.

~~~
rwhitman
I do, kinda. Lets just say that I haven't paid for music in quite some time..
and when I did it was always CDs, I've bought maybe one album digitally.

Its not the idea of paying that bothers me so much as the price point. I know
damn well there's nowhere near the overhead costs to digital distribution that
there are to printing, publishing and retail, why am I only getting a $5.00
discount? Popular digital books and MP3 albums could cost $2 and still be
profitable...

Not to mention that I can't resell or exchange the digital copies like I could
physical media, so there's no longterm value. If you consume as much media as
I do you'll quickly go broke if you were to pay what they wanted, and not be
able to at least recoup some of the value in tradeins.

$9.00+ for digital DRMed media is a total ripoff.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"I know damn well there's nowhere near the overhead costs to digital
> distribution that there are to printing, publishing and retail"_

I dislike this argument - it assumes that products ought to be priced
according to their cost of production, which is patently false in reality. The
price of a product is whatever the market will bear.

Does this means MP3s aren't overpriced? Nope. The monopolistic cartel-like
behavior of the labels does seem to prevent the market from reaching a natural
equilibrium price for music; that being said, the notion that digital things
should be almost-free because they're almost-free to produce IMHO is BS.

> _"$9.00+ for digital DRMed media is a total ripoff."_

None of the major digital music stores have been DRMed for a _long_ time. Both
iTunes and Amazon MP3 are DRM free, and in fact the only real place you'll
find DRM on music these days is the Zune Store - but that's more because
you're on a all-you-can-listen subscription plan, there's no confusion about
whether or not you own your files.

~~~
rwhitman
With the price fixing the only competition in town is priced at free.
Therefore the market should bear somewhere between $10 and free. But not $10.
Its still a ripoff no matter what way you shake it. Competitively, paying to
download something is purely for the convenience of not having to hunt down a
free copy. So I'm paying not for the music, but the ease of downloading it
instantly. And thats not worth $10 to me.

(Ok, so the music you buy doesn't have DRM, that is true. But its still worth
absolutely nothing after you download it...)

~~~
Aevin1387
There are two flaws in your argument. First, the price is no longer fixed,
Apple took care of that. Granted, Amazon didn't give that option before, but
they do now. Second, the market obviously would bear $10, which is why the
Amazon Kindle store took off as it did. If the market wouldn't bear it, people
would not have bought the Kindle and the books. Remember, Capitalism doesn't
care what the fair price is, but what people are willing to pay.

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cobralibre
It would be nice if all the interested parties could come up with a solution
that involved public lending libraries.

If all print books were to (for the sake of argument) completely vanish right
now, I'm afraid that we'd find ourselves in a world where books were less
generally accessible, not more generally accessible. Given the relative ease
of ebook reproduction and distribution, this strikes me as the reverse of the
way things ought to be.

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zck
>Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days...

Only once? People won't enjoy that.

~~~
ditoa
Little steps and all that. I know it comes as a shock to a lot of the internet
generation but most business have a hell of a hard time changing their
business model and surviving it, the bigger the company the harder it becomes
as with everything in life.

This is a little step but it is down the right path. As much as we would all
love to have the same abilities as we do with physical copies of books going
the full wack of unlimited lending for unlimited timeframes is most likely too
big of a shock for publishers to deal with. Hell we don't even have a legal
way to do this with iTunes, Amazon MP3, and other online media services (at
least not that I am aware of? please correct me if I am wrong, note I said
_legal_ , technically it is possible as there is no DRM but legally there is
no way, it could be argued this is true for physical media too due to the
"license" on the inside of the CD, DVD, or whatever it is you bought but no
court would ever actually follow thru on that however sharing MP3s online
doesn't get the same treatment, go figure).

Anyway back to my point, I am pretty sure in time limitations will be lifted,
maybe not to the same as you get with physical media but pretty close. One
thing that is the same, if you lend a friend a book you certainly can't keep
reading! It would have been pretty cool (and a much bigger deal IMHO) if the
publishers used this as a marketing tool for word of mouth advertising by
letting you "lend" the book to a friend while you can still read it but limit
the lending limit to 14 days (or N number of chapters, which is better in IMHO
as people read at different speeds, only at the weekends, etc. Time limits are
a pain in the ass whereas content limits make it a lot more user friendly, at
least to me it does, it is also much easier to manage, no clever ways to check
when it has been 14 days (dealing with users who never connect to wifi and
just set the date back, etc), no hacks to have to patch in the next firmware
update, etc. just lend the friend 50% of the book, not 100% but with a digital
lock around it that _will_ be broken before even 1% of the user base upgrades
their firmware) That way they can probably exploit the "omg I just got this
amazing book you should sooo buy it" factor when someone first gets a book but
hasn't finished it yet so won't lend it to a friend, then they forget or it is
crap and they just dump it in a book store and the publisher never gets to
sell that friend a copy.

Just my 2c

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chollida1
> Second, later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new
> feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or
> Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days
> and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period.

Hmm, I'm currently Reading Steven King's "Under the dome" I'm about half way
through and it's been 14 days. I'm not sure this will be all that useful.

~~~
Pyrodogg
You might not even get that far. Since it's left to the publishers to decide
if the book is lendable, expect many best-sellers not to be.

Assuming the book could be re-lent to an individual after the first 14-day
period has expired and can be returned early without penalties I think this is
pretty good. Two weeks is a nice break-even point for shorter works and
massive novels.

Now I can recommend the kindle to friends and family without losing the
ability to lend them some of the book I've purchased and would like to share.

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jhgfdsahgf
I forget - can we still read bedtime stories to children or is that an un-
authorised use?

~~~
irons
Sure you can, but only once per story.

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leif
Sounds ripe for a marketplace where people can offer to and request lending
from other users.

~~~
riffraff
ah! I was thinking the same :) thisbookwillselfdistructin15days.com seems free
;)

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patio11
Lending ebooks is a feature demanded mostly by people who don't pay money for
ebooks (and don't pay money for movies, music, or videogames if they can
possibly avoid it) and will not be induced to pay money by the feature.

~~~
emmett
This is patently false. My girlfriend owns a Kindle, she buys books at a very
good rate (among other media), and she wants to be able to lend her ebooks.

Lending books is part of book culture! I don't own a Kindle yet specifically
because half the reason I buy books is to lend or give them to friends.
Sharing books is one of the greatest joys of reading. Everyone who shares is
not a pirate.

I generally agree with you that people who complain about media costing money
are not useful as customers. But there is a world of difference between not
wanting to pay and wanting to be able to lend and give what you buy.

~~~
potatolicious
I agree with patio11 but with a caveat: lending, in the way it is to be
implemented on the Kindle, and is already implemented on the Nook, is a
feature demanded by pirates more than customers.

Why? Because books can only be lent once. _Ever_.

This makes the feature almost useless for legitimate consumers, but for non-
DRMed files (on the Nook anyways) the lending feature is non-crippled, and
(rightly) can occur as many times as the user pleases.

Personally I think it's a load of crap that the lending feature is crippled in
such a way, but the fact of the matter is, the only people happy with the
existing way lending works are the people who aren't encumbered by it - i.e.,
the people who never actually deal in purchased/DRMed ebook material.

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dpapathanasiou
We were going to offer this at Fifobooks.com.

In fact, we were going to offer a feature whereby any ebook you bought on any
device could be made to work on any other device.

Unfortunately, we found out from a legal review that the DMCA makes that a
_criminal_ offense (we thought we would be covered by a consumer's right to
make personal archival copies of media they'd purchased, but that common-sense
right is _not_ part of the DMCA).

Anyway, the lend feature is really a step behind what AMZ should be doing:
portability of ebooks from device to device.

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alexyoung
Non-technical friends were impressed by my Kindle but it was hard to explain
not being able to lend books. However, the restrictions sound like they're
designed to make the recipient end up buying the book, rather than really
facilitate the type of lending people will expect.

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WalterBright
I wish Amazon would adopt the Netflix model for books. I'd certainly sign up
for that.

~~~
alexknight
Unlike movies, books can't be read within a 90 minute time frame. I can't see
Amazon introducing an unlimited eBook model.

