CNN: Why can't you 'give' an e-book?

[JaneD]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I'm not sure I'd want the ability for people to send me unsolicited gifts electronically.

Me either. There's something odd about it - I mean if someone gives me a hard copy of a book I can just toss it out if it offends me, but if it's given to me electronically through Amazon, the best I can do is delete it from the Kindle. It still appears in Archives and in my account.

[LDBoblo]

Just buy another Kindle and load the book you buy for them on it. Problem solved.

Sent from my Kindle

[nyrath]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Can't you do the usual wishlist thing, where someone puts something on their wishlist and you buy it for them? Does that not apply to ebooks?

I know very little about this, so take this with a grain of salt.

Many DRM schemes depend upon the user typing in the number of the credit card used to purchase the ebook. Naturally the book giver would be reluctant to give the recipient the giver's credit card number. Or vice versa.

[kjk]

I'll be pretty surprised if Amazon doesn't have some sort of wishlist/gifting system in place by this Xmas season.

[J. Strnad]

You definitely need some mitigating step, a kind of "airlock" for holding the books being gifted from which the recipient can choose to download them to his/her archive or Kindle.

I would definitely not want to open my Kindle to find that someone had sullied it with a book by Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin, as I'm sure people on the other side of the political spectrum from me wouldn't want to suddenly discover Al Franken or Barack Obama lurking in their archives! Ditto with any controversial topic that someone might want to evangelize.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

You definitely need some mitigating step, a kind of "airlock" for holding the books being gifted from which the recipient can choose to download them to his/her archive or Kindle.

I would definitely not want to open my Kindle to find that someone had sullied it with a book by Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin, as I'm sure people on the other side of the political spectrum from me wouldn't want to suddenly discover Al Franken or Barack Obama lurking in their archives! Ditto with any controversial topic that someone might want to evangelize.

Yes, agreed. Delivering an e-book to someone would otherwise be like placing a book directly in someone's bookshelves. More invasive than gifting someone a print book, which you can give and someone might never put on his shelves.

[Lexicon]

You could avoid the issues involved with people sending you unsolicited ebooks by having the reading system notify you and giving you the option to:

1. Accept the gift and download it to the device.
2. Accept the gift but hold it on Amazon's servers for now.
3. Reject the gift and refund the money to the purchaser.

1 would cover most cases I expect. 3 is obviously a bit rude but should probably be there as an option just in case.

2 is the interesting one. Amazon could implement a system for exchanging undownloaded books, so you could virtually "take back" an unwanted ebook and choose another instead.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

You definitely need some mitigating step, a kind of "airlock" for holding the books being gifted from which the recipient can choose to download them to his/her archive or Kindle.

I would definitely not want to open my Kindle to find that someone had sullied it with a book by Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin, as I'm sure people on the other side of the political spectrum from me wouldn't want to suddenly discover Al Franken or Barack Obama lurking in their archives! Ditto with any controversial topic that someone might want to evangelize.

lol! Think of the mischief

The existing wishlist system seems to be a good gating system (although you can actually send non-wishlist physical items along WITH a wishlist item right now)

[jasonfedelem]

Seems to me that since we're dealing with non-physical media anyway, that it would work better just to get them a gift card. I may have 20 books on my wish list, but I may want book 1 a lot more than I want book 2. If someone buys book 2 for me, all I can say is "its the thought that counts". If they give me a gift card, I can buy the book I want. Seem to be a better system anyway...

[Pagali]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Actually, gift is a valid verb, albeit a wee bit archaic, that dates back at least as early as the mid 16th century. Most decent, preferably older, dictionaries will tell you this. 'Tis interesting that give, which probably originated in the 13th century survived whereas gift, as a verb, has fallen into disuse even though it continues on as a noun.

We need to look at the different flavors of English in use around the world. True, the verb 'gift' has fallen out of use in British and American English. (I don't know about Australian...)

However, in Indian English 'gift' as a verb is very much alive and well. You hear it all the time. They also use charming words such as 'prepone' and 'rusticate', no longer used in most other flavors of English.

Back to the thread subject -- I'm just learning about the wonderful world of eBooks after years of being a librarian and a reader. I think it's fascinating to see the changes that are happening, and will continue to happen. As somebody else said, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see that Amazon and others find a way to allow the 'gifting' of eBooks to others in the near future. They've always been good at identifying a need and then filling it. In the meanwhile, I'll personally stick with gift certificates.

[CatsMeow]

I ran into this issue recently. When my stepson was visiting, he let me use his Kindle for the weekend for an indepth test drive. I read the second of the Dragon Tattoo books on the Kindle. As a thank you gift, I wanted to give him the third in the series. After quite a bit a research, I found I could give him a gift card or have Amazon ship him a DTB. I ended up buying a DTB at Borders and sending via the postal service. So Amazon lost a sale.

It was actually the third time that Amazon lost a sale from us. For my stepson's birthday, we noted that he wasn't using the Amazon gift certificate we'd sent for Christmas and there was a specific book my husband had in mind. So we purchased two DTBs from Borders and sent via postal. It happens we saw my stepson this past weekend and he was reading one of the birthday DTBs and saying what a pleasure it was to read a DTB. He was also quite happy to have found a new and intriguing author in the title I'd chosen.

I enjoy gifting books. I'll send books out-of-the-blue to friends. Just because when I'm reading, I oftentimes say to myself, "so-and-so would really love this book". Sending a gift card with a note to "buy xyz book" is simply not as personal. Until the retailers work out ways to send eBooks, I'll just keep buying DTBs from local retailers and sending by mail.

[abookreader]

yeah - I agree that Amazon (and other retailers) will eventually devise a system where people can purchase Kindle books for you from your Kindle Wish List. It'd be a feature, maybe not one everybody is interested in but many would like it. It'd drive sales. What do they have to lose?

Those lists can be set to private or public so users would already have the ability to keep unwanted eyes from their reading lists.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

It seems to me that this whole business of buying a license rather than a book

You are buying the book, the retailers/Publishers have conned you into thinking all you're getting is a license. Then they use DRM to take away the rights that you're supposed to have according to copyright law.

[Randal6393]

Two separate points in the thread here:

What will DRM do to an ebook purchased?

How to gift an ebook to a Kindle?

Now, a DRMed ebook can't be used except on the device purchased for, we all agree on that. That is, unless the ebook is non-DRMed, which has been beat to death before.

However, it is very possible to send a non-DRMed ebook in prc/mobi format to a Kindle. If the owner gives the sender permission by setting the permission on their Kindle. Then, the sender simply mails the ebook as an attached file to the Kindle's email address. It is downloaded to the Kindle by the wireless circuitry, much as a book purchased through Amazon.com would be. PS: A 15-cent charge per megabit mailed may apply.

The Kindle owner gives permission, the sender emails. Simple, no?

Enjoy,

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by Randal6393

Two separate points in the thread here:

What will DRM do to an ebook purchased?

How to gift an ebook to a Kindle?

Now, a DRMed ebook can't be used except on the device purchased for, we all agree on that. That is, unless the ebook is non-DRMed, which has been beat to death before.

However, it is very possible to send a non-DRMed ebook in prc/mobi format to a Kindle. If the owner gives the sender permission by setting the permission on their Kindle. Then, the sender simply mails the ebook as an attached file to the Kindle's email address. It is downloaded to the Kindle by the wireless circuitry, much as a book purchased through Amazon.com would be. PS: A 15-cent charge per megabit mailed may apply.

The Kindle owner gives permission, the sender emails. Simple, no?

Enjoy,

I wouldn't consider this a simple method of gift-giving, lol.