Overview
Content from Amazon and some other content providers is primarily encoded in Amazon's proprietary Kindle format (AZW). It is also possible to load content in various formats from a computer by simply transferring it to the Kindle via USB (for free) or by emailing it to a registered email address provided by Amazon (for a fee via 3G, or free via Wi-Fi); the email service can convert a number of document formats to Amazon's AZW format and then transmit the result to the associated
Kindle over Whispernet. In addition to published content such as books and periodicals, Kindle users can also access the Internet, free of charge, via either Wi-Fi or 3G.
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The
Kindle's terms of use forbid transferring Amazon e-books to another user or a different type of device. However, Amazon announced on December 30, 2010 that lending books on Kindles was allowed. Users can select reading material using the Kindle itself or through a computer at the Amazon Kindle store and can download content through the Kindle Store, which upon the initial launch of the Kindle had more than 88,000 digital titles available for download. This number continued steadily increasing to more than 275,000 by late 2008, and exceeded 500,000 in the spring of 2010. As of July 4, 2011, there were more than 765,000 books available for download, about 36,000 of them in German language. In late 2007, new releases and
New York Times best sellers were being offered for approximately US$11, with first chapters of many books offered as free samples. Many titles, including some classics, are offered free of charge or at a low price, which has been stated to relate to the cost of adapting the book to the Kindle format. Magazines, newspapers and blogs via RSS are provided by Amazon per a monthly subscription fee or a free trial period. Newspaper subscriptions cost from US$1.99 to $27.99 per month; magazines charge between $1.25 and $10.99 per month, and blogs charge from $0.99 to $1.99 per month. Amazon e-book sales overtook print for one day for the first time on Christmas Day of 2009.
International users of Kindle pay different prices for books depending on their registered country. For U.S. customers traveling abroad, Amazon originally charged a $1.99 fee to download books over 3G while overseas. That charge was quietly dropped in May 2010.
[citation needed] Fees remain for wireless delivery of periodical subscriptions and personal documents.
In addition to the Kindle store, paid content for the Kindle can be purchased from various independent sources such as
Fictionwise,
Mobipocket and
Webscriptions.
Public domain titles are also obtainable for the Kindle via content providers such as
Project Gutenberg and
World Public Library. A survey has revealed that the Kindle store has more than twice as much paid content as its nearest competitor, Barnes and Noble
The device is sold with electronic editions of its owner's manual and the
New Oxford American Dictionary (UK version includes the
Oxford Dictionary of English). Users are able to purchase different dictionaries from the Kindle store as specified in the included manual The
Kindle also contains several free experimental features including a basic web browser. Users can also play music from MP3 files in the background in the order they were added to the Kindle.
Operating system updates are designed to be received wirelessly and installed automatically during a period in sleep mode in which wireless is turned on.
File formats
Original Kindle
The original Kindle supported only unprotected
Mobipocket books (MOBI, PRC),
plain text files (TXT), Topaz format books (TPZ), and Amazon's proprietary
DRM-restricted format (AZW).
Kindle 2 and 3
The Kindle 2 (U.S. and International) added native
Portable Document Format (PDF) support with the Version 2.3 firmware upgrade
Earlier versions did not fully support PDF, but Amazon provided "experimental" conversion to the native AZW format, with the caveat that not all PDFs may format correctly. Kindle 2 added support for Audible Enhanced (AAX) format, but dropped support for Audible versions 2 and 3.
On the Kindle 2, it was possible to view HTML files that were stored directly on the unit itself. This allowed creation of local offline content in linked web-pages that could be used even if the unit had no active connection to the internet at the time. Such pages could be accessed by directing the browser address to the local filesystem (as in file:///mnt/us/test.html for example) as opposed to a live website address (as in for example.) The Kindle 3 is not able to browse local HTML in this manner, only live external websites.
Email conversion
Amazon offers an email-based service that will convert
JPEG,
GIF,
PNG and
BMP graphics to AZW. Amazon will also convert
HTML pages and
Microsoft Word (DOC) documents through the same email-based mechanism, which will send a Kindle-formatted file to the device via 3G for $0.15 per MB or via WiFi for free. These services can be accessed by sending emails to <kindleusername>@kindle.com and to <kindleusername>@free.kindle.com for Whispernet-delivered and WiFi-delivered file conversion, respectively, but these are services available just for those who bought a true Kindle device, not available for those who just own the digital Kindle application (iPhone, iPad, etc.). The file that the user wants to be converted needs to be attached to these emails. Users could also convert PDF and other files to the first-generation Kindle's supported formats using third-party software. The original Kindle supported audio in the form of
MP3s and Audible audiobooks (versions 2, 3 and 4), which had to be transferred to the Kindle via USB or on an SD card.
Epub support
The Kindle platform does not support the international
EPUB ebook standard. However there is software available (e.g.
Calibre) which can convert a non-
DRM EPUB file into the unprotected
Mobipocket format that the Kindle can read. Additionally, Amazon offers a free program called KindleGen which converts EPUB and several other formats.
Multiple device support and organization
A book may be downloaded from Amazon to several devices at the same time. The devices sharing the book must be registered to the same Amazon account. A sharing limit typically ranges from one to six devices, depending on an undisclosed number of licenses set by the book publisher. When a limit is reached, the user must remove the book from some device
[75] or unregister a device containing the book
[76] in order to add a book to another device.
The original Kindle and Kindle 2 did not allow the user to organize books into folders. The user could only select what type of content to display on the homescreen and whether to organize by author, title, or download date. Kindle software version 2.5 (released July 2010) allowed for the organization of books into "Collections" which roughly corresponds to folders except for the fact that one book may be added to multiple collections. These collections can only be set and organized on the Kindle itself. There remains no option to organize by series or series order, as the AZW format does not possess the needed metadata fields.
User-created annotations
Users can bookmark, highlight and look up content. Pages can be
dog-eared for reference and notes can be added to relevant content. While a book is open on the display, menu options allow users to search for
synonyms and definitions from the built-in dictionary. The device also remembers the last page read for each book. Pages can be saved as a "clipping", or a text file containing the text of the currently displayed page. All clippings are appended to a single file, which can be downloaded over a USB cable.
Kindle Development Kit (KDK)
On January 21, 2010, Amazon announced the forthcoming release of their Kindle Development Kit.Their aim is to allow developers to build 'active content' for the Kindle, and a beta version was announced with a February 2010 release date. A number of companies have already experimented with delivering active content through the Kindle's bundled browser, and the KDK promises 'sample code, documentation and the Kindle Simulator' together with a new revenue sharing model for developers.
The KDK is based on the Java Programming Language, specifically, the JSR 1.1.2 Personal Basis flavor of packaged Java APIs.
Textbook Rentals
On July 18, 2011, Amazon began a program that allows college students to rent Kindle textbooks from three different publishers for a fixed period of time.
Business model
Kindle Direct Publishing
Concurrently with the Kindle device, Amazon launched the Kindle Direct Publishing, where authors and publishers independently publish their books directly to Kindle and Kindle Apps worldwide. In open
beta testing as of late 2007, the platform has been promoted to established authors by an e-mail
[81] and by advertisements at Amazon.com. Authors can upload documents in several formats for delivery via Whispernet and charge between $0.99 and $200.00 per download.
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In a December 5, 2009 interview with
The New York Times, CEO Jeff Bezos revealed that Amazon.com keeps 65% of the revenue from all ebook sales for the Kindle.
[82] The remaining 35% is split between the book author and publisher. After numerous commentators observed that Apple's popular
App Store offers 70% of royalties to the publisher, Amazon began a program that offers 70% royalties to Kindle publishers who agree to certain conditions.
Other criticisms involve the
business model behind Amazon's implementation and distribution of e-books. Amazon introduced a software application allowing Kindle books to be read on an iPhone or iPod Touch. Amazon soon followed with an application called "Kindle for PCs" that can be run on a Windows PC. Due to the book publisher's DRM policies, Amazon claims that there is no
right of first sale with e-books. Amazon states they are licensed, not purchased; so unlike paper books, buyers do not actually own their e-books according to Amazon. This has however never been tested in the courts and the outcome of any action by Amazon is by no means certain. The law is in a state of flux in jurisdictions around the world.
[edit] Remote content removal
On July 17, 2009, Amazon.com withdrew certain Kindle titles,
Animal Farm and
Nineteen Eighty-Four by
George Orwell, from sale, refunded the cost to those who had purchased them, and remotely deleted these titles from purchasers' devices after discovering that the publisher lacked rights to publish the titles in question. Notes and annotations for the books made by users on their devices were left in a separate file, but "rendered useless" without the content they were directly linked to.The move prompted outcry and comparisons to
Nineteen Eighty-Four itself. In the novel, books, magazines and newspapers in public archives that contradict the ruling party are either edited long after being published or destroyed outright; the removed materials go "down the
memory hole", nickname for an incinerator chute. Customers and commentators noted the resemblance to the censorship in the novel, and described Amazon's action in
Orwellian terms. Some critics also argued that the deletion violated the Kindle's Terms of Service, which states in part:
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"Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use."
Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener stated that the company is "… changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances."
[94] On July 23, 2009, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos posted an apology about the company's handling of the matter on Amazon's official Kindle forum. Bezos said the action was "stupid", and that the executives at Amazon "deserve the criticism received."
On July 30, 2009, Justin Gawronski, a Michigan high school senior, and Antoine Bruguier, a California engineer, filed suit against Amazon in the
United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Gawronski argued that Amazon had violated their terms of service by remotely deleting the copy of
Nineteen Eighty-Four he had purchased, in the process preventing him from accessing annotations he had written. Bruguier also had his copy deleted without his consent, and found Amazon "deceit[ful]" in an email exchange. The complaint, which requested class-action status, asked for both monetary and injunctive relief. The case was settled on September 25, 2009, with Amazon agreeing to pay $150,000 divided between the two plaintiffs, on the understanding that the law firm representing them,
Kamber Edelson LLC, "...will donate its portion of that fee to a charitable organization...". The settlement also saw Amazon guaranteeing wider rights to Kindle owners over their eBooks:
For copies of Works purchased pursuant to TOS granting "the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy" of each purchased Work and to "view, use and display [such Works] an unlimited number of times, solely on the [Devices]. . . and solely for [the purchasers'] personal, non-commercial use", Amazon will not remotely delete or modify such Works from Devices purchased and being used in the United States unless (a) the user consents to such deletion or modification; (b) the user requests a refund for the Work or otherwise fails to pay for the Work (e.g., if a credit or debit card issuer declines to remit payment); (c) a judicial or regulatory order requires such deletion or modification; or (d) deletion or modification is reasonably necessary to protect the consumer or the operation of a Device or network through which the Device communicates (e.g., to remove harmful code embedded within a copy of a Work downloaded to a Device)
On September 4, 2009, Amazon offered affected users a restoration of the deleted ebooks, an Amazon gift certificate, or a check for the amount of $30.
In December 2010, three eBooks by author
Selena Kitt were removed due to violations of Amazon's publishing guidelines. For what Amazon describes as "a brief period of time," the books were unavailable for redownload by users who had already purchased them. This ability was restored after it was brought to Amazon's attention; however, no remote deletion took place.
