Kindle lending library "exercise of brute economic power," says Guild:
After seeing that a movie adaptation was in production, last week I downloaded Suzanne Collins' novel The Hunger Games—and I didn't pay a thing for it. But I didn't turn to piracy. Instead I visited Amazon.com, where the company's new "Kindle lending library" offers those with Kindle hardware and an Amazon Prime subscription one free book to read each month. It's a terrific new benefit for Prime users, and it's clearly designed to hook people on Amazon hardware (like the new Fire tablet) and digital content.
Amazon attracts more customers to e-books, readers get free content, and publishers get paid. Everyone's happy, right?
Wrong. The Authors Guild, which represents the interests of writers, blasted the program yesterday, saying that the lending library program is built on "nonsense" and a "tortured reading" of Amazon's contracts with publishers.
"Amazon, in other words, appears to be boldly breaching its contracts with these publishers," wrote the Guild. "This is an exercise of brute economic power."
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