Legal Research

Kindle Lending

By admin

Everyone got very excited last week when Amazon announced that they would soon allow lending of e-books on the Kindle. This is great – as far as it goes.

Some of the questions that came to this librarian’s mind to ask were:

1. Is this feature going to be like the one that the Barnes & Noble Nook has had for a while and not require that the format be in the restrictive Amazon e-book format?
2. Is the feature going to be only for individual owners of books or will institutional owners like libraries be permitted to lend in this fashion?
3. Will there be simple institutional policies for e-book lending of Amazon purchased format e-books? And Kindle devices?
4. Will the e-book be treated like a print book in this lending environment? (i.e. it will disappear from your device when lent?)
5. Will it be as easy to use as apps like “Bump”?
6. The announcement contained the limitation that books could be lent “if publisher allows it.” This is well within the rights of publishers but what percentage of Amazon suppliers have granted this lending right? How many books and at what point does the purchaser find out if they can lend their purchase?
7. What jurisdictions will the lending feature be available in?

Just questions, but questions nonetheless.

Some of the answers so far:

“Kindle to get lending feature just like Nook ? sometime in 2010

Your Kindle 3 and your other Kindles will soon get a Nook LendMe type feature that lets you lend books once. The key details -
- Each book can be lent only once.
- The loan can be for a maximum of 14 days.
- You can?t read your book while you?ve lent it.
- Publishers determine if books are lendable.
- Feature arrives sometime in 2010.”

It’s a development worth watching. Are library users being discriminated against. Can this become an economic as well as a digital divide issue?

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on November 01, 2010 (boomark / email).