In November 2007, Amazon.com launched its own ebook reader, the Kindle,
with a catalog of 80,000 ebooks - and new releases for US $9,99 each.
The built-in memory and 2G SD card gave plenty of book storage (1.4 G),
with a screen using the E Ink technology, and page-turning buttons.
Books were directly bought and downloaded via the device's 3G wireless
connection, with no need for a computer, unlike the Sony Reader.
580.000 Kindles were sold in 2008. A thinner and revamped Kindle 2 was
launched in February 2009, with a storage capacity of 1,500 ebooks, a
new text-to-speech feature, and a catalog of 230,000 ebooks on
Amazon.com's website, including the catalog of Mobipocket, a company
bought by Amazon in April 2005 and the catalog of Audible.com (audio
books and magazines), another company bought by Amazon in January 2009.
The Kindle DX was launched in May 2009 with a larger screen, more
suitable to read newspapers and magazines.
October 2008 > Google Books versus the associations of authors and
publishers
After three years of conflict, Google reached a settlement with the
associations of authors and publishers in October 2008, with an
agreement to be signed during the next years. The inclusion of
copyrighted works in Google Books -- launched in April 2005 as Google
Print - had been widely criticized by authors and publishers worldwide.
In the U.S., lawsuits were filed by the Authors Guild and the
Association of American Publishers (AAP) for alleged copyright
infringement. The assumption was that the full scanning and digitizing
of copyrighted books infringed copyright laws, even if only snippets
were made freely available. Google had replied this was "fair use",
referring to short excerpts from copyrighted books that could be
lawfully quoted in another book or website, as long as the source
(author, title, publisher) was mentioned.