The Authors Guild and the Kindle Lending Library

Authors Guild Says Kindle Lending Library Is "Outside the Bounds of the Publisher's Authority"

In a strongly worded memo issued Monday afternoon, the Authors Guild took issue with Amazon's Kindle Lending Library for Prime customers, in particular those titles available without express permission from publishers and authors.

"How can Amazon get away with this? By giving its boilerplate contract with these publishers a tortured reading," the Guild said, adding that permission appeared to be dispensed with "because, as Amazon apparently sees it, its contracts with these publishers merely require it to pay publishers the wholesale price of the books that Amazon Prime customers download."

 The reasoning is "nonsense", from the AG's understanding of Amazon’s standard contractual terms: "publishers did not surrender this level of control to the retailer. Amazon’s boilerplate terms specifically contemplate the sale of e-books, not giveaways, subscriptions, or lending." In other words, the Guild asserts Amazon "appears to be boldly breaching its contracts with these publishers."

The way I see it, the Kindle Library is lending out books that haven't been purchased.

No regular library lends out books that have not been paid for, first.

The Authors Guild recommends that authors who find that their publishers have given the Kindle Lending Library permission to lend out their works without consulting with them first should be asking them some probing questions.