- Share This Post
- submit
- 5
-
Sparkle (0)
Last week was a big e-book discussion week. Barnes and Noble released it's new dedicated e-book reader, the Nook. There was a dust up about Kindle usage. And then there was the shocking revelation that *gasp* readers have rights too.
Let's look at the Nook first. (Yeah, it's a bad name, but then Kindle isn't so great either.) This new offering from BN offers a lot of what the Kindle does, including wireless downloads. It's good to see the Kindle have some competition on that front (rumor is that Sony is coming out with something similar soon and one assumes that when Apple unleashes their version it will have that as well). When the Nook was announced one of the big (in fact HUGE) advantages that readers saw was the "Lend Me" feature which would allow the Nook owner to "loan" the e-book to a friend for a period of fourteen days. During that time they would not be able to read the book on their own device. In a world where "loaning e-books" tends to result in "dirty rotten pirate" this was major news.
Until someone did a little bit more digging. As it turns out that you can only loan a book out once. There was a collective sigh around the blogosphere and well, some people who already ordered it before that tidbit came to light might be in for a bit of a surprise.
Geeky Mom asked if the Nook will be a Kindle killer and I honestly don't think so, especially in light of the loaning a book only once policy. And because Barnes and Noble is coming to the game late their e-books stocks aren't quite as extensive as other e-book sellers.
Now let's move on to the Kindle. There was a story in the New York Times about e-books that caused a kerfuffle (I believe that is the polite term for what happened). This is the part in particular that caused the uproar:
Exploiting a loophole in Amazon’s system, Ms. Englin has linked her Kindle to the Amazon account of some nearby friends, allowing all of them to read books like “The Lost Symbol” at the same time — while paying for them only once.
The article then goes on to report that Ms. Englin says she and her friends do not know if what they do is within Amazon's terms of service. It's how the article ends and the big takeaway from the whole article as written is that this woman is cheating the system. It set off numerous groups, but perhaps most unfortunately it set off some authors. The woman was called a thief on Twitter. Worse yet, others were encouraged to retweet the accusation.
The problem was, as so elegantly laid out by Dear Author's Jane, the Ms. Englin and her friends weren't doing anything wrong. Not by Kindle's Terms of Service, which allows six devices to be connected to a single account. And no, they do not have to live in the same household. Now you're not going to let use anyone use your Kindle account. Why? Because they also have access to your credit card (which is stored so that you can download wirelessly to the Kindle) and can make purchases on it. You have to be pretty good friends with someone to allow that. She wasn't breaking any copyright or digital rights management laws or agreements either. You see, we readers? We have some rights too.
The problem here is that the very same law that gives authors a property right to their creative work gives consumers the right of first sale and fair use privileges. Let me state that again. The VERY SAME LAW that creates intellectual property for authors gives readers rights too.
A lot of this comes down to digital rights management and pirating. Now, this is going to be the hard part as I try really hard not to rant. This is the thing, I support authors. They provide me with hours and hours of entertainment each week, let alone over the course of a year. I'm happy to pay for their books when I can afford and borrow from the library when I can't. I don't want their work to be pirated anymore than they do and I certainly won't be the one pirating it. But I hate digital rights management and the DRM files that are attached the the e-books that I legally purchase. With a passion.
I remember the
