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> many people would now accept that it seems reasonable that you can't lend your books to someone else. Really? Some evidence for this claim would be very usef

> many people would now accept that it seems reasonable that you can't lend your books to someone else. Really? Some evidence for this claim would be very useful. My (personal and anecdotal) experience is just the opposite - people seem more willing to lend out physical possessions - where they still have them. So, books, XBox games, clothes, etc - I see these things being shared all the time.

kwantam 15y ago
Really? Some evidence for this claim would be very useful. How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? How fast would I get sued if I made a magical piece of software that allowed people to lend digital music purchases to their friends in some hypothetical way exactly analogous to lending them a physical CD (i.e., only one copy ever exists)? How fast is the RIAA lawyering up over Amazon et al offering services where I can store my music in their cloud and stream it to myself? Really, I don't think I'm making a hugely strong claim here.
- durin42 15y ago
  I don't know anybody that doesn't at least express regret over the fact that books on their Kindle can't be shared, and I know more than one family that shares one giant account for all their purchases as a workaround. It's definitely not something people are completely happy with, although they're not as up in arms as I'd like...
- urbanjunkie 15y ago
  > How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? Yesterday Amazon announced they're selling more titles on Kindle than hardback and paperback put together. > How fast would I get sued if I made a magical piece of software that allowed people to lend digital music purchases to their friends in some hypothetical way exactly analogous to lending them a physical CD (i.e., only one copy ever exists)? What does this have to do with me asking you for some evidence that people were more accepting of the fact that they can't lend books out? > How fast is the RIAA lawyering up over Amazon et al offering services where I can store my music in their cloud and stream it to myself? Again, not sure what this has to do with you saying people accept that it's reasonable to not lend out books. I think we understand different things by "evidence" - you're positing hypotheticals. [updated to add missing not in my penultimate sentence]
  - sparky 15y ago
    > > How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? > Yesterday Amazon announced they're selling more titles on Kindle than hardback and paperback put together. That's his point. Not many people are boycotting the Kindle, despite its titles being less lendable than their physical counterparts. This seems like evidence to me; it's not likely that you'll find a longitudinal study of people's attitudes towards book lending over the past 50 years, but anecdotally I think it's reasonable to posit that people would have scoffed at Kindle-like lending restrictions on physical books 50 years ago (and probably still would). What sort of evidence would you require?
    - urbanjunkie 15y ago
      But you can lend - you just hand someone your Kindle. What you can't do (right now), is take a copy, send that copy to someone and be prevented from reading the . Having said that, I clearly misunderstood his original point - I had physical items in mind when I responded. There's an implication that we're all blissfully unaware, and one day we're going to wake up, and all the rights that matter will have been taken away from us, one imperceptible slice at a time. I pretty much disagree with this - I think the tradeoffs that are being made are deemed acceptable. We yearn for more (the ability to share anything we want with anyone we want at any time), but we've have collectively decided to sacrifice some freedoms to gain others.
      - knieveltech 15y ago
        From where I'm sitting all I see is a steady erosion of personal freedoms and an ever-increasing number of behavioral mandates we have to adhere to. I invite you to point out these new found freedoms we've traded up for.
        urbanjunkie 15y ago
        I don't think I said we traded up, but it's not like we've lost everything. Here are some freedoms (or benefits) - freedom from physically needing to get to a bookstore - I know this sounds trivial, but there are many people who have difficulties with access - the freedom of choice: I can still continue purchasing the physical artifacts and carry on as before - being able to carry around hundreds or thousands of digital artifacts in incredible. I grew up with Walkmans, and having to create tapes, then moved onto carrying around CDs in cumbersome cases to go with my portable CDman. Are these trivial freedoms? Possibly. Is my life better - certainly.
- cabalamat 15y ago
  > How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? I won't be buying one until they remove the DRM.
  - ygreek 15y ago
    Admirable, but regrettably, people boycotting Kindle or any other product because of the DRM are in the minority that is easy to ignore.
Splines 15y ago
Even bits on physical media are slowly being made un-lendable. EA's "Project Ten Dollar" is an attack at the used games market, and a side affect of this is that you can't lend the whole game to a friend. All Steam games require you to have steam installed, and the physical CD is just a convenience. Once you've installed the game, you might as well throw the CD away. people seem more willing to lend out physical possessions - where they still have them Doesn't that bolster the original claim "many people would now accept that it seems reasonable that you can't lend your books to someone else."? As more and more media moves to digital distribution, the concept of lending is entirely foreign.

kwantam 15y ago

Really? Some evidence for this claim would be very useful. How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? How fast would I get sued if I made a magical piece of software that allowed people to lend digital music purchases to their friends in some hypothetical way exactly analogous to lending them a physical CD (i.e., only one copy ever exists)? How fast is the RIAA lawyering up over Amazon et al offering services where I can store my music in their cloud and stream it to myself? Really, I don't think I'm making a hugely strong claim here.

durin42 15y ago
I don't know anybody that doesn't at least express regret over the fact that books on their Kindle can't be shared, and I know more than one family that shares one giant account for all their purchases as a workaround. It's definitely not something people are completely happy with, although they're not as up in arms as I'd like...
urbanjunkie 15y ago
> How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? Yesterday Amazon announced they're selling more titles on Kindle than hardback and paperback put together. > How fast would I get sued if I made a magical piece of software that allowed people to lend digital music purchases to their friends in some hypothetical way exactly analogous to lending them a physical CD (i.e., only one copy ever exists)? What does this have to do with me asking you for some evidence that people were more accepting of the fact that they can't lend books out? > How fast is the RIAA lawyering up over Amazon et al offering services where I can store my music in their cloud and stream it to myself? Again, not sure what this has to do with you saying people accept that it's reasonable to not lend out books. I think we understand different things by "evidence" - you're positing hypotheticals. [updated to add missing not in my penultimate sentence]
- sparky 15y ago
  > > How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? > Yesterday Amazon announced they're selling more titles on Kindle than hardback and paperback put together. That's his point. Not many people are boycotting the Kindle, despite its titles being less lendable than their physical counterparts. This seems like evidence to me; it's not likely that you'll find a longitudinal study of people's attitudes towards book lending over the past 50 years, but anecdotally I think it's reasonable to posit that people would have scoffed at Kindle-like lending restrictions on physical books 50 years ago (and probably still would). What sort of evidence would you require?
  - urbanjunkie 15y ago
    But you can lend - you just hand someone your Kindle. What you can't do (right now), is take a copy, send that copy to someone and be prevented from reading the . Having said that, I clearly misunderstood his original point - I had physical items in mind when I responded. There's an implication that we're all blissfully unaware, and one day we're going to wake up, and all the rights that matter will have been taken away from us, one imperceptible slice at a time. I pretty much disagree with this - I think the tradeoffs that are being made are deemed acceptable. We yearn for more (the ability to share anything we want with anyone we want at any time), but we've have collectively decided to sacrifice some freedoms to gain others.
    - knieveltech 15y ago
      From where I'm sitting all I see is a steady erosion of personal freedoms and an ever-increasing number of behavioral mandates we have to adhere to. I invite you to point out these new found freedoms we've traded up for.
      - urbanjunkie 15y ago
        I don't think I said we traded up, but it's not like we've lost everything. Here are some freedoms (or benefits) - freedom from physically needing to get to a bookstore - I know this sounds trivial, but there are many people who have difficulties with access - the freedom of choice: I can still continue purchasing the physical artifacts and carry on as before - being able to carry around hundreds or thousands of digital artifacts in incredible. I grew up with Walkmans, and having to create tapes, then moved onto carrying around CDs in cumbersome cases to go with my portable CDman. Are these trivial freedoms? Possibly. Is my life better - certainly.
cabalamat 15y ago
> How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? I won't be buying one until they remove the DRM.
- ygreek 15y ago
  Admirable, but regrettably, people boycotting Kindle or any other product because of the DRM are in the minority that is easy to ignore.

Splines 15y ago

Even bits on physical media are slowly being made un-lendable. EA's "Project Ten Dollar" is an attack at the used games market, and a side affect of this is that you can't lend the whole game to a friend. All Steam games require you to have steam installed, and the physical CD is just a convenience. Once you've installed the game, you might as well throw the CD away. people seem more willing to lend out physical possessions - where they still have them Doesn't that bolster the original claim "many people would now accept that it seems reasonable that you can't lend your books to someone else."? As more and more media moves to digital distribution, the concept of lending is entirely foreign.