Amazon is in talks with book publishers about launching a digital book rental service in a similar vein to Netflix.

The service, which is expected to only be available in the US at first, would see customers pay an annual fee for access to a library of ebooks.

Amazon is believed to have offered book publishers a large fee. However, the negotiations are said to still be in their early stages. The Seattle-based technology company has said that the digital ebook library would feature older titles and be accessible to those who pay for $79 a year for Amazon Prime.

One US publishing executive said: "What it [the digital book rental service] would do is downgrade the value of the book business."

Publishers are understood to be having mixed reactions to the concept.

Digital book rental services already exist, with sites like booksfree.com and bookswim.com having been live for some time. However, these services send out the physical books to their customers, rather than just offering limited ebook access.

据英国《每日电讯报》9月12日报道，亚马逊正在与图书发行商谈判，（希望）推出类似美国网飞公司的数字图书租赁服务。

这项服务预期最初只在美国实行，用户可以每年支付一定费用，获取该图书馆中的电子书。

人们认为亚马逊已经向图书发行商支付了大笔费用。然而，据称谈判仍处于初级阶段。这家总部位于西雅图的科技公司表示，电子图书馆内的书主要为旧书，用户需要向“亚马逊优惠计划”支付每年79美元的费用。

一位美国发行经理说：“电子书租赁服务将会降低图书买卖的价值。”

发行商对该理念做出不同反应也无可厚非。

像booksfree.com和bookswim.com这种可以提供数字图书租赁服务的网站存在已久。然而，这些服务租赁给顾客的是纸质书籍而不是有限的电子书资源。