On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 8:55 AM, Pat Rapp <[email protected]> wrote:
> Apparently, the use of Kindle by libraries is very fuzzy: > > > > > http://lonewolflibrarian.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/wisconsin-library-begins-lending-the-kindle-2-e-reader032309/ > > > > “*Conclusion? It’s either OK or not OK to circulate Kindles, with or > without content, depending on who at Amazon you ask.”* > Oh, you gotta love this crap, don't you? "Crazy making" is putting it generously. I think Amazon probably doesn't know the answer to this right now, so they're not dealing with it. They'll let your library twist in the wind until their legal department and product development teams come up with a solution that maximizes their expected revenues. (If they're smart, they'll look at what you guys are doing and use it as data. They're usually smarter than most companies, so I think they'll probably do that.) > ** > > Also, FWIW, the downloadable books that are currently available through > Monroe County Library System come from Overdrive and can be downloaded to > most mp3 players (but not iPod) and have a three-week due date just like > borrowing a library book. Once the 3 weeks is up, the book is no longer > playable. (I don’t know how this works – probably Eric does.) > I'm gonna guess that either Criag or Dave H know more about this than I do. I haven't tried to keep up with DRM tech. Since I've normally refused to buy anything that's DRM, I have no first hand knowledge. (I do buy etexts with limited rights management from Fictionwise -- I buy PDFs from them which can't be printed [unless they're modified]. But I do make it a rule to never buy anything in digital form that has programmatic restrictions on how I can copy it.) > There are also a limited number of copies available, just like real books, > so you sometimes have to place a reserve on a download just like you would > with a real book. > I've wondered about this. Interesting. > One might assume Kindle will work in a similar way at some point in the > near future. > > > That's a good question. I'd guess not, actually, since the whole Kindle business model is geared at selling. Ancillary stuff like the free web browsing is just a sweetener: They're trying to get you using the Kindle instead of other tools. So I see the Kindle becoming more like a general purpose computer -- I think it will eventually become a sort of more or less proprietary webpad, which has "good enough" capability for web browsing and email management (probably some kind of simple IMAP client), maybe even simple Office document viewers. Good enough that it will be easy to just get by with it, but not so good that Amazon has to worry about people end-running Amazon's main revenue stream. Kindle as a library interface would clearly undermine their revenue stream. Those of us who aren't librarians ;-) can be forgiven for not knowing that many people in the publishing industry think libraries are a regrettably necessary evil, and would be far happier if they didn't exist at all. I doubt Jeff Bezos would *personally* share that view, but I don't see him going out of his way to make it easy for you. > *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On > Behalf Of *Eric Scoles > *Sent:* Saturday, April 11, 2009 7:58 AM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* Re: author's guild discriminates? > > > > I think that would qualify as a system hack rather than a patch. My > understanding of how Kindle works is that DRM is rendered almost irrelevant > (though it's still there) by the workflow: You buy a work, the purchase is > recorded, and normally you download it (but not necessarily); you can later > delete, then re-download the same work. > > I know that you can put your own otherwise-purchased ebooks onto a Kindle, > but I gather it's a non-trivial exercise. And you wouldn't be able to share > *from the Kindle*. > > On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 9:23 PM, delancey <[email protected]> wrote: > > > BTW: can someone tell me, I gather that you cannot share a kindle > copy. Is that right? If so, will libraries have some DRM patch to > lend them out? Anyone know? > > cd > > > > > > > -- > eric scoles ([email protected]) > > > > > -- eric scoles ([email protected]) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
