E-Book Lending

[bcomet]

I heard a troubling series of related news stories about e-book lending this week.

As envisioned, eBookToss.com will pool users to create an online list of lendable e-books and will facilitate free loans directly between users, entirely contingent on features enabled by e-book providers.

from
BookSwim Plans E-book Lending Site
By Andrew Albanese

Full Article:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-t ... -site.html

And I wonder if a virtual lending library is going to kill potential e-book sales. Scary.

Personally, I want to be able to share within my family and close friends, just like we all listen to music together and swap CDs or i-pods, but I would be worried that a LOT of authors would lose BIG who are now becoming dependent on e-book sales.

What have you heard? What are your thoughts?

[Margo]

Hmm, off hand this doesn't worry me, provided it's the kind of a situation where the book becomes unavailable to the original owner for the period it's available to the lender. Libraries and the lending of hard copies haven't killed off traditionally published authors. I'd be more concerned with illegal downloads, though I'm encouraged to see authors like Amanda Hocking mentioning they were finding their books on download sites even before their sales really took off - and yet she's still around and doing fine.

[bcomet]

Open domain lending seems fair enough, after copyrights have expired?

Open, any-book lending on the internet might mean (at least this is my worry) that you only have to wait to be matched up to the book you want to read even on new releases. It feels at first blush like a copyright nightmare to me.

[Doug Pardee]

This isn't anything to be concerned about, because it isn't going anywhere. It's just one of the dozen or so sites where Kindle and NOOK owners can get together to use the lending feature of their e-readers (booksfornooks, ebook exchange, lendle, etc.)

Those lending features are very restrictive. An e-book can only be lent once. Ever. The e-book can only be lent for 14 days, no more, no less. When you make an offer to loan an e-book, you can't read that e-book until the offer expires after 7 days, or for 14 days after the offer is accepted, so it could be up to 21 days before you can read it again. After you get it back, you can never loan that e-book again. Kindle users can only loan to Kindle users, and NOOK users can only loan to NOOK users. Only people in the US can loan e-books, and only to people in areas where that e-book is available (in other words, the usual geographical restrictions apply).

Furthermore, the publisher must permit lending of the e-book, and the only one of the 'Big 6' publishing houses currently permitting any e-book lending is Macmillan. Penguin used to allow it when lending was just on the NOOK, but once Kindle added the lending feature, Penguin pulled out. Harlequin doesn't allow lending, either.

Library lending is a much bigger deal.

[bcomet]

If that is the case, then,you're right, there is no problem.

But this is the first I've heard of "how far" the lending might go. And, so, considering an "indefinite lending," I have had more concerns.

With an actual, physical book, a lot of "owners" are more possessive. There is a large sentiment of wanting to keep their books close, in their library, etc.

With an e-book, the concern and sense of who is touching, eating over, conserving, keeping out of weather, mildew, or perfumed environments, and so on, with one's book goes way down. It would just be content they are sharing. No wear and tear. So people who can share their e-content are probably going to be more liberal about it, at least after they have read it themselves and lent it to their families and friends of course.

But if there is a limit to the sharing, that shouldn't be a bad thing.

But this I know: I would buy a book I want. My twenty-something relative would only borrow it if she didn't have to pay, but she would pay 2.99 up to 7.99 (Walmart prices, right?) if she really wanted to read it and she couldn't "borrow" it.