Full news story on Penguin cancels Kindle library lending - others may follow.
Penguin cancels Kindle library lending - others may follow
Nov 22 2011
Overdrive, which distributes ebooks to libraries, announced yesterday that Penguin Group USA has instructed them to "disable 'Get for Kindle' functionality for all Penguin ebooks". Penguin also told them that "it is reviewing terms for library lending of their ebooks" and has suspended availability to libraries of new ebook releases.
Publishers have been expressing quiet concern since OverDrive added the ability to download books that could be read on a Kindle in September. One of the sticking points appears to be that it was assumed that Overdrive would serve Kindle compatible files directly to patrons, thus protecting patrons' confidential information (as promised by Overdrive in April). Instead, Overdrive sends patrons to Amazon to complete their transaction.
PaidContent.org comments that that while Penguin "is unusual among the 'big six' publishers in that it allows e-books to be borrowed through libraries at all. Macmillan and Simon & Schuster do not distribute any e-books (new or old) to libraries. Hachette Book Group does not allow new titles to be lent as e-books, and HarperCollins allows new e-books to be borrowed only 26 times before the library has to buy a new copy. This leaves Random House as the only big six publisher currently allowing unfettered access to its e-books through libraries."
Nov 23 Update: OverDrive have announced that Kindle availability for Penguin eBooks has been restored in library catalogs, but new releases remain unavailable.
A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
read more
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
read more
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
Full Story
