The jkOntheRun mobile device blog has an early story out on Barnes & Noble's new e-reader, the Nook. From their summary:
E-books can be loaned to other Nook owners, or those with any version of eReader software installed on a handset or computer. The loan period is 14 days, after which the e-book disappears on the lendee’s device. The original owner cannot access the e-book during the loan period.
Publishers can restrict their books from being loaned.
This is exciting news from the reader's perspective, but I can't help but wonder if this Nook feature will be the subject of copyright infringement litigation in the near future. "Digital lending" is considered an oxymoron among most copyright owners, though thankfully this is the kind of problem that $$$ often solves (and may have already solved in this case). Giving copyright owners the option of turning off the lending feature is similar to the way Amazon parried objections to the text-to-speech feature with its Kindle 2 e-reader. (BTW there is no text-to-speech option on the Nook.)
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