random digital library book question

[susiebw]

Seeing the Nook/library book question reminded me that I've been meaning to ask you guys about this . . .

DH and I are both the sort to borrow a bunch of ebooks at once and then slip our Kindles into airplane mode and hold onto those books for a while past the return date.  I'm sure you all are well aware of this trick, wherein the library gets its digital copy back into circulation, but I get to continue reading it until I switch out of airplane mode and the book then disappears. 

Except sometimes it doesn't disappear.  DH and I each have 2 or 3 books in our respective Kindles that we borrowed from the library and then somehow kept.  We share a Kindle library, and these books do not go into our Kindle shared library, but just stay on our individual devices.  So I can't access the library books that he still has, and he can't access mine - though generally speaking, when I have a book out from the library, he can access it through the family Kindle cloud during the loan period.

Has this happened to anyone else?  DH hasn't been able to find anything on the internet about this phenomenon, but I thought some of you might have also had this experience.

[snshne322]

I'll pay attention to this on my new Paperwhite. I've only had it a few weeks.

I had a 3 year old basic kindle that kept books until I turned on the Wifi.

[Nonny]

This happens to me with library books on my Kindle pretty regularly. The other day one of the buttons to launch a special offer got accidentally held down and turned on my wifi, and I only lost one book (out of about 3-4 that should have expired).

DRM on ebooks is kind of a weird animal. Generally speaking, library loans talk to a DRM server rather than having a time bomb built into the book, which is why turning off your wifi lets you extend your loan period, because it can't run the check.

I'm not particularly well versed on the intricate details of ebook DRM though. I can speculate on why this happens if you want based on my experience and knowledge with digital movie rentals, and stories I've heard regarding Sirius XM radios, but it would all be theory and conjecture.

[aurora]

Interesting - I've never had this happen. I have an old Kindle keyboard.

[smock]

I've had books hang around, but if I click on them it says they're expired. I don't think I've been able to read any of them. But yeah, I do the airport mode thing all the time--it's also great for battery life!

[pinotgrig]

If I'm understating correctly, I fix this by logging on to my Amazon accojnt, going to manage content and devices, and then deleting all the old library rentals that have expired. That removes them from my kindle.