Amazon Plans to Launch Digital Library Service

According to WSJ, Amazon is in talks with publishing houses to launch a library service similar to the popular movie rental service Netflix for owners of eBook readers like Amazon’s own Kindle. Under the proposed plan, Amazon would charge readers a yearly fee to access a large body of content.

A number of unnamed publishing executives expressed their displeasure with the idea, noting concerns over the service lowering the value of books and stressing relations with brick and mortar book stores. On the other side, Amazon is attempting to woo publishers with a substantial fee for joining on and plans to limit the number of books subscription members could read for free each month.

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