Amazon just can’t stay out of the news right now with the big debate regarding whether the company will be releasing their version of the iPad or not raging. And now they’re back in the news, but this time with their take on e-books and Netflix. Intrigued yet?

According to the Wall Street Journal, the big to-do right now is about the Netflix-like library that is supposedly being explored by Amazon -an online library where subscribers could “rent” e-books for an annual fee.

The library would feature older electronic books that subscribers could check out for an undefined period of time.

To ensure that their digital book sales don’t suffer, the library would have the same set up as Netflix where the books didn’t include any new releases. This would be a win-win for Amazon, allowing them to sell new books, rent old books, and all around just be awesome.

Not everyone seems to be sold on this idea however; the thought from publishing companies being that book sales would suffer from the set-up. It’s likely that there would be some incentive from Amazon to put their fears at bay – probably in the form of a big, fat participation payment check.

It seems like actual libraries would take the biggest hit. Why would you check out a real book when you can just download it to your Kindle? Not to mention you can’t misplace an e-book like you can a library book.

Having something like this to offer in conjunction with the release of their rumored tablet would be a good way to break it [the tablet] into the marketplace and to put up a huge fight up against Apple’s iPad, which is dominating the tablet arena right now. But so far this is all just hearsay; there is no concrete evidence that the library or the elusive tablet will be making their big debut.

Let’s be honest though, who doesn’t love a good rumor to stir things up?