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kindle help

5 replies

jklikesrowing · 09/01/2012 21:50

so i have a kindle, can we share books? for eg if i put them on to my laptop and burn to cd then give that cd to a friend and they can use them?

OP posts:
IreadthereforeIam · 09/01/2012 22:16

You could do that, but I think it's illegalSad

jklikesrowing · 09/01/2012 22:36

oh well!!

OP posts:
FeathersMcGraw · 09/01/2012 22:43

Don't think that will work.

If the books are ones bought from Amazon then they have digital rights protection stuff on them (ooh, get me sounding like I know what I'm talking about!) and are linked to your Amazon account which stops them working on another Kindle (unless it is another one bought by you and linked to your account).

However, if you were to find some ebooks on the internet with a mobi file extension then they will work on any Kindle...

Balderdabble · 09/01/2012 22:47

I'm not certain, but I think you can share books between accounts - so within a family or group of friends, where you both have a kindle, you can set it it up to share books - I think. But it is very limited, you'd both need kindles and I might have dreamt that you can do it Grin

3mum · 10/01/2012 17:22

Hi thought I'd contribute two pieces of wisdom.

  1. Kindles can read any book in a compatible format (eg pdf). This is not prohibited and Amazon's instructions for the kindle actually tell you this. I frequently send my kindle books purchased from other sources. The easiest way to do this is to email them to your kindle as an attachment to its freekindle emailaddress. (Look on your Amazon kindle account to check what this address is).
  1. You can only share books bought from Amazon with kindles registered to YOUR Amazon kindle account. This is because of Amazon's DRM. However, you can register more than one kindle to your account. I am a sad geek who needs to get out more so I currently have 3 kindles registered for my own use. Any kindle registered to your account can have your books sent to it. If you really want to read a book someone else has on their kindle and bought from Amazon, you can deregister your kindle and re-register it to their account so it temporarily becomes their Kindle. Read the book and then re-register your Kindle to your account. You will usually (but not always) lose the book you downloaded whilst your Kindle was someone else's as part of the process of re-registering.

Incidentally, given WH Smith's approach on ebooks with their new ereader (buy it once then it is totally transferable), you have to wonder how long Amazon can keep their position up. If I buy a paperback book and want to give it away once I have read it I am free to do so. I have never seen why ebooks should be any different and apparently WH Smith agree.

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