My daughter and I both have a Kindle,(3G keyboard version). Somebody mentioned there is a way to share Amazon Kindle books to other Kindle users. Any helpful people know if this easy to do?
Angela

It seems that you can only share content if both devices are registered to the same account.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/cust...3832166&sr=1-1

US account holders can also borrow and lend books between different accounts AFAIK, but this is not enabled for non-US folk. Probably legal issues.

Kindle books are protected with a decryption called DRM, it can be broken/stripped.
Suggest Google.......How to strip DRM.

Which is, of course, illegal...

As posted simply have both Kindles linked to the same Amazon account - this is what OH and I do.

Is it? What law has been breached?

Assuming that we are all talking about the UK, I don't believe that removal of DRM on its own is illegal. However, my understanding is that making unauthorized copies (which could be enabled by stripping DRM) is a breach of copyright law.
So if you copy Kindle books by removing DRM then what you are doing is almost certainly illegal.

As has already been said by others we have multiple devices connected to the same Amazon account which is legal and explicitly permitted by Amazon.

One thing to keep an eye open for is that there are a few publishers, such as Baen, who make books available free in eReader formats, including Kindle without DRM.

I'm just talking about removing DRM. Say you wanted to read your kindle books on your Sony Reader for example?

there is an extension for calibre which will do this (strip drm)

There is now a scheme (has been for a little while I believe) where you can lend a kindle book for 14 days to someone else. They do not need to be on your account, they do not even need to have a kindle (they can use a reader app on iphone, ipad, PC, etc.).

I haven't really read up on it but I believe you can only lend one book at a time, you can't read the book whilst it is lent out, and after the 14 days you can't lend the book again (so you can't keep topping up the 14 days for slow readers).

You access it from the "Manage your Kindle" section on Amazon.


See here for more information

This is on Amazon.COM - not .CO.UK. This can only be done in the USA.

You're breaking the security on the file, which is in breach of the Ts & Cs. I don't think it is illegal in the "you'll go to prison" sense of the word, but it is breaking your license agreement with Amazon and therefore shouldn't be done. Whether or not you do it is your prerogative.

Companies can put any old rubbish in their T&C and many of them do. I wouldn't worry about what they say you can and cannot do, only worry about what is legal and what is not.

Stripping DRM from a file is not illegal in the UK, nothing can happen to you for doing it even if it is against a companies T&C.

I would go as far as to say what they are doing should be illegal, its like buying a physical book in Waterstones and them telling you when you can and cannot read it.

Ah, I've heard various reports on it and never picked up on that.

Apologies.

All the fines imposed on people that "file share" copyright material are based on some crazy calculation of how much revenue was lost by the copyright owner.

If a kid has 1000 songs on his PC, and 1000 people copy them, they calculate that the record industry lost 1 million sales of songs. In my opinion, this is a crazy assumption, but it is how they work out the fines.

If you share one book with one person, I think the cost of pursuing you would be many times greater than the maximum fine, even if it is technically against copyright law.

This is a real negative for me about the whole digital industry.

The whole thing about reading and listening to music even dvds and the like is sharing things with people and introducing people to different things.

If I buy a hard copy of a book I can give it to a friend, i can give it to a charity shop or I can sell it on a boot fair. I am free to do what I want with the the thing I have bought. If that means give ti to someone else then that is my choice.

I dont see how this cant be done with digital products.

There is a one word answer to your question: lawyers!

Do you think publishers (of books, music, movies, or anything else) like the fact you can give your DVD to a friend after you've watched it? With the introduction of CDs, the record industry made a fortune selling people songs they already owned on vinyl.

But the problem was you could still share a CD or sell it on the second hand market with no profit for them. Now with non-physical content they have finally worked out how to control content so you never actually own it, you just have the right to use it in very limited ways.

Removing DRM is most certainly not illegal. The trouble with DRM is that it stops you doing perfectly legal things with an ebook you have bought. There is nothing wrong or illegal with having a book on two devices for your own use, and in fact nothing wrong with giving an ebook to another person if you delete it yourself.

If you buy a book from a website and download it to your PC, it is pretty galling to find out that it can not be put on your ereader because of DRM. In those circumstances removing the DRM is sensible and legal.

Of course making copies to give to friends to avoid buying the book is illegal and foolish as well.

If you buy a book for your Kindle from Amazon it is in your Kindle account, and you can read it on any Kindle devices (Kindles or Kindle apps) registered to your account. I have two Kindles and have all of my books on both. No need to consider removing DRM.

Just because Amazon has made it easy to have the same book on your two Kindles, it doesn't make it illegal to remove DRM. What if instead of having two Kindles, you had a Kindle and a Sony eReader?