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I would assume the thinking behind time limits is that a compromised Nook or Amazon account could be used to buy a crapload of books and then lend them out perm

I would assume the thinking behind time limits is that a compromised Nook or Amazon account could be used to buy a crapload of books and then lend them out permanently. Doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, because they presumably know who you've lent them to. Then again, non-limited lending raises other issues. How do you get it back? Do you allow the purchaser to forcibly take it back, removing it from the borrower's device? That sucks for the borrower. But that also requires that the device be connected to the web at some point; if the borrower only uses USB to load the device, the loaned item can't be snatched away. Time limits, that don't rely on connectivity, are probably the simplest solution.

kklimonda 16y ago
I don't think the lend feature is going to work "offline", i.e. without participation of Amazon. So Amazon would have a full control over who has lend, what books and to which people. So they can easily deauthorize them. But that wouldn't work if there were no time limit at all - you could lend a book and disable all wireless connectivity. So why not make Kindle users who have lent book reauthorize every 14 days with Amazon's servers to extend the lease.. Sure, some people would abuse this system but it's not like you can't download more and more ebooks from various not-so-legal places anyway. But then the whole thing is useless - seriously, I can lend some books, for two weeks and only once? No, thanks.