EduKindle

After fretting a bit about the limitations that the Kindle License and Terms of Use may place on educational applications, I found some other spots in the document that don’t ring true. Take the section on “Your Conduct”:

Your Conduct. You agree you will use the wireless connectivity provided by Amazon only in connection with Services Amazon provides for the Device. You may not use the wireless connectivity for any other purpose.

Not sure I follow. Amazon created a “Basic Web Browser” that can access the Internet from the Kindle. Clumsy, yes. Slow, most definitely. Wide open, seems to be… So, what could I do on the Internet with a browser and a keypad that violates these terms?

I am going to follow Jeff Bezos and his definition of the Kindle as a “frictionless experience,” one that facilitates rather than restricts more and more reading. Maybe I will download some Uncle Remus to the Kindle so I can more closely study the meaning of all this talk about a briar patch.

Library Journal has been tracking a story that involves libraries lending “loaded” Kindles to their patrons. At the heart of the matter is the question, Is it OK to lend a Kindle? The article cites an Amazon spokesperson:

Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener told LJ that a loan of a Kindle without content is OK, but sharing a device loaded with content “with a wide group of people would not be in line with the terms of use.”

Maybe with the use of works in the public domain from Mark Twain, Shakespeare, and James Fennimore Cooper, schools will remain immune to this “retail only” approach that Amazon is apparently taking. Is it possible to to unleash a revolution, with strings attached?