[Web4lib] Kindle Lending

[Tim Spalding]

Look, strictly speaking, this doesn't affect libraries whatsoever.
Non-personal use of Kindles is expressly prohibited under their terms.
Some libraries are playing with Kindle lending, ignoring the
prohibition and hoping nobody notices. Eventually publishers and
Amazon will take action, much as British Publishers did recently in
cracking down on distance lending of ebooks.

The situation is simple. Publishers want to restrict library lending
of ebooks, unless they can recoup retail-like money for each rental.
They The first sale doctrine allowed libraries to buy books on the
same terms as anyone else, and lend them out like nobody else
did--extracting significantly higher value from them. Publishers and
authors never really liked that arrangement, and now that they have a
licensed good to sell, they can stop it. People who think publishers
will allow libraries to buy and lend ebooks as before are kidding
themselves.

As far as users go, the full details aren't available, but it is said
to resemble the B&N "lending" which:

* Only applies to some titles, at the publisher's discretion (which is
constrained by author rights agreements).
* Can only be done once per title, for two weeks.

This isn't "exponentially more valuable," even to a solitary consumer.
It's marginally more valuable than previous ebook licenses, and
exponentially less free than non-digital book rights.

Lastly, and with respect, I want to express profound confusion why
librarians would promote a device that cuts libraries out, and that
incorporates monitoring and censorship mechanisms profoundly counter
to often-expressed ethical standards. That ebook cut libraries out is
clear to me, but I acknowledge some don't agree. But look at the
privacy issue. A few years ago many librarians went mad over the
prospect that the federal government might make requests for check-out
records for individual patrons suspected of terrorism. I have seen no
outrage as over promoting devices that continually monitor and record
everything you read, when you read it, who you shared it with, and
every annotation you make, and put it in a cloud-based service—which
triggers a lower standard of legal protection—under control of a
company in no way responsive to library ethics.

Sincerely,
Tim

On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Robert Balliot <rballiot at gmail.com> wrote:
> First we had the gigantic price drop in Kindles, now they become
> exponentially more valuable as sharing devices:
>
> http://bit.ly/8YzWu7
>
> How will this impact lending libraries - public and academic?  A pooled list
> of books using a book club could create a dynamic shared resource, not
> unlike the public library model.
>
> R. Balliot
> http://oceanstatelibrarian.com
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
>



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