RE: Amazon Kindle e-book license agreements

["Peter B. Hirtle" <pbh6@cornell.edu>]

I have been worried about licensing restrictions associated with 
iPads and Kindles as well - and not just on the digital content 
on the device, but also on the system software.  Some of these 
licenses may not allow the loan of the device even with public 
domain content on it.  I wrote recently about these issues at 
http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2011/02/kindles-and-libraries.html 
in a discussion on an article on "Digitization and Democracy: the 
conflict between the Amazon Kindle license agreement and the role 
of libraries in a free society" by Gregory K. Laughlin.  (An 
earlier post on iPads is at 
http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2010/06/may-a-library-lend-e-book-readers.html.)

My understanding is that most libraries that are loaning Kindles 
are acting in the same way as most libraries that loan Netflix 
movies: they are doing so in spite of the license terms and until 
someone tells them "no."

Peter Hirtle

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Le Beau, Chris
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 9:35 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Amazon Kindle e-book license agreements

For those libraries not limiting Kindle content to public domain 
books, how are they getting around this part of the license 
clause? This also begs the question about a license controlling 
public domain material. I'm interpreting "distribute" , correctly 
or incorrectly, to also mean "loan."

Restrictions.

Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, 
lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any 
rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third 
party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels 
on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will 
not encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, 
modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect the 
Digital Content.

I have heard of situations where a library owns the Kindle, and 
will pay for the e-book the patron wants, but then erase the 
e-book copy after the patron is finished with the book. This 
sounds perfectly reasonable from an Amazon perspective, but I'm 
not so sure the restriction even allows that. I have also heard 
of libraries that just buy the physical device and let the patron 
pay for the downloaded e-books.

I think many libraries are interested in getting Kindles and 
similar reading devices. I wonder if any organization or 
coalition is talking with Amazon on our behalf?

(Of course after reading this, no library will probably want to 
say what they're doing with Kindles :) )

Chris LeBeau
Assistant Teaching Professor
University of Missouri
School of Information Science & Learning Technologies & Research & Instruction Librarian, Business & Public Admin.
UMKC University Libraries