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[eBook library] LendInk

Misa Buckley

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Someone's just flagged this on Twitter, but I don't know anything more. It's an e-book lending site, offering Kindle and Nook books.

Anyone know more about it?

lendink.com
 

KTC

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My two books are on this site. I was told by a friend late last night. I'd love to know more about this. Are they pirates???


They have 'request to borrow' buttons and 'buy from Amazon', etc buttons.

???
 

sissybaby

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My book is there, along with several others from authors I know personally. When I tried to join, I got a notice that their certificate of use had expired.
 

Torgo

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The blog hasn't been updated for over a year, and any website which gives me big red Xs in my browser is raising literal red flags for me - but I suspect they're just moribund rather than scammers/pirates.

This is a lend-matching site like Lendle was, it seems. I post that I have a copy of book A, and if you want to borrow it you can do it via the Kindle / Nook lending system. Internet dating for books, if you like.

Amazon clearly didn't like Lendle, as they removed API access from them after a while. There's a difference between being able to lend a book to your IRL friends and lending them to strangers over the internet, I guess. I don't imagine this or similar services will thrive. (But no, it doesn't seem to be piracy.)
 

HapiSofi

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We're still sorting out the question of whether you can lend or resell ebooks. My guess is that in the end, the answer will be "no". Until that gets settled, outfits like Lendink are operating in a gray area. Exactly how gray it is is a matter of your personal convictions.
 

Erin

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My second book hasn't even been released yet and it's already on their site along with my first one.
 

Mclesh

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My second book hasn't even been released yet and it's already on their site along with my first one.


Can someone clarify how ebook lending works? I mean, once it's on someone's reader or computer, isn't it there forever? Or am I missing something?
 

Torgo

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We're still sorting out the question of whether you can lend or resell ebooks. My guess is that in the end, the answer will be "no". Until that gets settled, outfits like Lendink are operating in a gray area. Exactly how gray it is is a matter of your personal convictions.

Until I realised that Amazon really strictly controls lending I thought that sites like these would basically be a hand-cranked free lending library with an inventory comprising the pooled libraries of every participant. (And this doomed.) Lending on kindle is something like, you can only lend out any given book once only, and only one book at a time. That's restrictive enough to prevent the nightmare scenario, but not easy enough to be actually fun or useful.

I would think some kind of friends and family list within which you have infinite lending? But I am sure that could also be gamed somehow. Hmm.
 

Torgo

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Can someone clarify how ebook lending works? I mean, once it's on someone's reader or computer, isn't it there forever? Or am I missing something?

It depends on DRM to work. When I lend you an ebook I am unable to read it via my DRM-infected ereader hardware or software; you are granted temporary access to the content via your h. or s.
 

HapiSofi

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My second book hasn't even been released yet and it's already on their site along with my first one.

They can't have that legally. Look into it.
 

HapiSofi

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Torgo, all those issues are in flux right now. We can only wait and see how it shakes out. In the meantime, what I keep telling people is that if they love an author's work, or a particular kind of book, the only way they're ever going to see more is if they pay for it.
 

Mclesh

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It depends on DRM to work. When I lend you an ebook I am unable to read it via my DRM-infected ereader hardware or software; you are granted temporary access to the content via your h. or s.

Ah. Thank you. I'd heard of DRM and forgotten about it. (Short attention span, you know.)
 

Unimportant

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In the meantime, what I keep telling people is that if they love an author's work, or a particular kind of book, the only way they're ever going to see more is if they pay for it.
QFT.
 

Terie

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Here's what my editor at Flux said after investigating it:

Here’s how it works: if you buy an ebook on your Kindle or Nook, you have the ability to lend it out to anyone else with a Kindle or Nook (Kindles lend to Kindles, Nooks to Nooks, etc.). This website connects ebook owners with others who want to borrow ebooks. So, instead of just borrowing from a friend, you can borrow even though you don’t know the person. All they do is match lenders and borrowers together. (They’re like a dating service.) The actual lending happens through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or wherever the ebook was originally purchased, and that’s completely legit.

HTH.
 

Misa Buckley

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I don't mind the lending aspect, but I dislike the fact Lendink ask for donations. Why should they get paid for lending my book when I don't see a cent?
 

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The site was up and running yesterday. My publisher inquired about it and today, the site has been suspended. Looks like they were up to no good.
 

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The site was up and running yesterday. My publisher inquired about it and today, the site has been suspended. Looks like they were up to no good.

It's more likely that a misguided author sent a DMCA to their host and they were shut down on the accusation alone.
 

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It depends on DRM to work. When I lend you an ebook I am unable to read it via my DRM-infected ereader hardware or software; you are granted temporary access to the content via your h. or s.

Note that this is similar to the way the DRM works with Overdrive providing licensed ebooks to libraries.
 

Kastil

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It's more likely that a misguided author sent a DMCA to their host and they were shut down on the accusation alone.
Considering there were books that had DRM code on them, I doubt that was the only reason. While it's not illegal to break the DRM code to, say, transfer the book to another ereader you own. It is illegal to then share it with someone else.
 

mscelina

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Right now, a lot of digital publishers like Musa are getting into companies like Overdrive, which allows legitimate libraries to purchase copies of ebooks and then lend them out to their readers for a set number of temporary downloads. That's fine with us--it not only lets the authors get royalties but it puts our books in a physical library, where the lending will be monitored.

Lendink is illegally nabbing the intellectual property of thousands of authors and farming it out without the knowledge or permission of their publishers or the writers. They have been served multiple DMCA notices for their behavior and hopefully are gone for good.

It's more likely that a misguided author sent a DMCA to their host and they were shut down on the accusation alone.

It's never "misguided" to send a DMCA notice to a host for a website that is illegally profiting from your intellectual property. What is "misguided" is that anyone would be stupid enough to think it was okay to swipe all those ebooks and create a bogus "lending library" to farm out thousands of copies to "misguided" people who think that ebook theft isn't really a crime.

My second book hasn't even been released yet and it's already on their site along with my first one.

I would notify your publisher ASAP. This means that either someone on the publisher's staff OR a review site/blogger who was sent your ARC is funneling not-yet-published books to Lendink. You can bet your boots that your book has also been sent to torrent sites and other pirating places. But for this library to have your book BEFORE it's released means that someone at your publisher needs to take a good look at the possible sources for a leak like that.
 

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Was LendInk a pirate site? From their FAQs, it wasn't clear and it looked more like a reader matching site that didn't have any files of its own. From Dear Author:

LendInk brought strangers together, allowing them to lend legitimately purchased ebooks to each other under the terms and policies set by each publisher (whether it was a self published author or a traditionally published author). Unfortunately, for some reason a number of authors believed that the site was engaged in piracy and in three days got the site shut down.

http://dearauthor.com/news/tuesday-...ist-story-supporting-agency-by-simon-lipskar/

I didn't investigate much further than that, though, so I don't know the details.
 

Torgo

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Was LendInk a pirate site? From their FAQs, it wasn't clear and it looked more like a reader matching site that didn't have any files of its own.

That was what I took it to be. If you take them at face value, it's another attempt to do the Lendle thing. Of course, perhaps they're not actually doing that; but if it is indeed via Amazon/B&N lending systems, the DRM should ensure nobody gets borrowed without permission.