A number of sources, including CNET, report that Amazon has revoked API access for Kindle e-book lending service Lendle (whom we mentioned here and here). According to Lendle, Amazon said that Lendle does not “serve the principal purpose of driving sales of products and services on the Amazon site.” Lendle has posted its own account as well.
The revocation means that Lendle is unable to access Amazon’s database, a crippling blow to the service. As a result, the Lendle team has pulled the plug on the website for now, though they are contacting Amazon to try to find out if there’s something they can change to change Amazon’s mind. Lendle co-founder Jeff Croft claims that at least two other Kindle lending services got the same message, though it is unclear whether they have actually been taken down.
On the other hand, Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader actually heard from four of the other seven Kindle sites that lend e-books and found that not only are they still up, but they haven’t heard anything from Amazon. (So perhaps those two that allegedly did were among the three he didn’t hear from?)
It’s still not clear yet whether the takedown was because of something Lendle did differently from the other lending sites, or whether Amazon will be going after all of them (Croft’s claim of others getting the same notice notwithstanding). Regardless, one thing remains clear: although Kindle and Nook owners can “lend” each of their books one time to one person, ever, people who illegally crack the DRM on their e-books can “lend” them to as many people as they want to.
Amazon — the reader’s best friend, along with Steve Jobs and Apple, of course. From my perspective, it is just another demonstration of why giving Amazon a too dominant position in ebooks will ultimately be bad for the consumer. The situation for ebookers is great now while there are still large and viable competitors to Amazon, but should Barnes & Noble and Kobo follow Borders footsteps, I think Amazon’s supporters will be in for a rude awakening.
Well, from Amazon’s point of view, their decision to divorce themselves from Lendle makes good business sense. The Lendle model was built on ONE person buying a book from Amazon and then being able to to lend it to UNLIMITED readers, albeit one at a time.
Essentially, Lendle turned Amazon into a library without the only-26-loans-allowed-and-then-you-need-to-repurchase restrictions recently foisted on public libraries by one of the Agency publishers.
I also wonder if Amazon isn’t getting some pressure from pubishers. After all, Amazon has a lending agreement with publishers that allows ONLY THOSE BOOKS SELECTED by the publisher, to be loaned to another Kindle owner for ONE TIME ONLY and only for a period of 14 days. It would seem that Lendle’s “all books, as many times as you want” lending policy would violate those agreements.
Lenne: citation? How is Lendle able to bypass the normal 1-loan-per-book restriction, without actually breaking the law and stripping DRM?
When we were building out our 14 live chat sites eg – http://www.LiveF1Chat.com/
– http://www.LiveBasketballChat.com/
– http://www.LiveHockeyChat.com/ etc etc
All of the developers were saying no need to build databases, just use Facebook login to provide access and control.
Not a chance.
Users can “link” their account to their facebook (you can post in real time to your facebook wall and your twitter stream from within out live chat apps) but there is no way to use our platform without registering for it first and that’s the way its going to be – some people see this as a stumbling block, i see it as good business sense.