Title:
Amazon Launches E-Book Lending for Libraries
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Technology Report.
See text below
Text:
Amazon.com recently launched its Kindle
library-lending service in the United States.
Millions of users of the Kindle reader and app can
now borrow Kindle books from their local public
library. The company is working with OverDrive, a
leading supplier of e-books and other digital
content to libraries. The service will be available
through the websites of more than eleven thousand
local libraries across the country. Users of other
devices including the Barnes and Noble Nook and Sony
Reader have already been able to borrow library
books. Experts say Amazon's entry is likely to
reopen a debate between publishers and libraries
over e-book lending. Bill Rosenblatt is president of
Giant Steps Media Technology Strategies, a
consulting company. He says "Publishers and
libraries are enemies that occur in nature like
snakes and mongeese. Libraries would like to be able
to make books available to everyone, all the time,
with no limitations. And publishers, of course,
would like to sell more books to the public." Mr.
Rosenblatt says the debate in the United States
centers on what is known as the law of first sale.
"Once you buy any kind of media product such as a
book or a CD or a DVD or anything like that, you can
do whatever you want with it. You can read it, you
can give it away, you can lend it, you can resell
it, you can burn it, you can use it as a Frisbee --
whatever you want." This law of first sale is what
permits libraries to lend books over and over again
without having to pay publishers each time. But it
does not include digital products. Technology known
as digital rights management can make e-books
unreadable once they have reached a certain time or
user limit. Bill Rosenblatt points out that one of
the major publishers made an announcement several
months ago. Harper Collins said it was only going to
allow e-books to be lent out twenty-six times, and
then they would have to be purchased by the
libraries again. HarperCollins says it took the
action to protect the growing e-book industry and
its own book sales. But Bill Rosenblatt says critics
did not see it that way. They think "because a
digital book lasts forever, as long as it's stored
somewhere in digital form, that it should be
lendable forever." He says the debate over e-book
lending will likely end up in court. For VOA Special
English, I'm Alex Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
