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Culture & Religion — September 13, 2011

Amazon & ‘Netflix for Books’

Great for consumers, bad for authors? As Amazon prepares to launch its long-rumored Android-powered tablet, it is also reportedly thinking about an e-book rental service.

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What’s the Latest Development?

As the company prepares to launch its long-rumored Android-powered tablet, Amazon is developing content initiatives to ensure the device is well-suited to delivering ample digital content to consumers and, in turn, more revenue back to the company’s bottom line. In addition to negotiating with magazines and newspapers to offer a subscription service, Amazon is reportedly also thinking about launching an e-book rental service.

What’s the Big Idea?

The service would make a library of backlist e-books available to Amazon Prime subscribers. News of the service, dubbed by some as a sort of “Netflix for books” has met mixed reactions from publishers, whose traditional business models have already been thoroughly challenged by Amazon and other digital forces. “Great for consumers, very bad for authors,” says one comment on the article.

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