Received the following email from Greg Belvedere:

Hello Paul,

I enjoy reading teleread and I’m working on a project that might interest you. I’m trying to fix the problem of ebook licenses that prohibit legal sharing. I have found a solution that aims to satisfy readers and copyright holders. I plan to do this in two phases. In the first phase I will create an ebook lending social network for public domain works. Once I have done this I will convince authors and publishers to adopt a new ebook license that will allow sharing of copyrighted ebooks through the site. My goal is to make sharing ebooks more like sharing print books. You can find more details about how sharing copyrighted ebooks will work on my Indiegogo campaign page. If you like the idea I hope you will share the link with your readers and help me spread the word. Thanks for your time.

7 COMMENTS

  1. Sounds like another doomed-to-failure idea. Public domain works are already available on any number of sites, including Amazon. I haven’t heard any cries for the ability to share them, so why does he think this is a need waiting to be filled? Even if it succeeds, and that’s a very big if, how would that convince publishers to allow lending of their copyrighted books?

  2. Another snowball’s chance in a microwave.

    At least with the opt-in for lending with the Kindle, the author and publisher gets something from the arrangement as well as the promotion for their not-free books from a major site. This site offers nothing like that.

  3. If it were a subscription site, publishers would get a share of subs, which would then be partly disbursed to authors based on how many times their titles were shared.

    Of course, with the Agency 6, they won’t get much. 🙁

  4. This doesn’t look like a subscription site although they are trying to fundraise $20,000 for start up costs.

    Many of these sites make lots of money from ads so they may make a good chunk of change if they become popular, but nowhere do they mention that they will share the wealth with those who are offering the free content.

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