The morality of circumventing geographical restrictions only to buy cheaper ebooks

[latepaul]

Well VPNs are only one way. Some people apparently just change their settings and use a country-relevant credit card.

But look, I'm not saying that it's likely that anyone will go after the end customers. I'm just saying that copyright is relevant when the whole business is predicated on copyright law.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

What do I care?

Why should the seller care? Consider this:



I'm in the Netherlands. Officially, the only place to buy the Kindle is in the US Amazon store. The total price including shipment and import taxes will be around €160.

A Kindle in the UK store costs 109 pounds; 129 euro.
A Kindle in the German store costs 129 euro's.

I can buy virtually anything from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de, and they send it to me without problems... but I *CAN'T BUY A KINDLE*. Why the frack can I buy something at Amazon.de or UK that costs €500 and weighs 20 pounds and have it shipped to me, while I Kindle needs to be sent by Amazon US, for an extra €31?!

Therefore I ordered the Kindle with one of my friends, who lives in Germany. He bought it, then gave it to me. Saved me €31. Have I done something illegal? To make it even more funny. My friend and I live about 2 miles apart, on diferent sides of the border.

Later I heard that some big retailers in Germany also carry the Kindle in-store. I live less than 2 miles from one of those retailers. I could basically walk to that store and pick up a Kindle. I live in the Netherlands, so would it be "illegal" for me to do that? If so, nobody cares.

The rules about point of sales is different for physical things.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

It definitely has nothing to do with copyright infringement. It is a contract between the publisher and the ebook store and it is the store's responsibility to uphold it, not mine.

The store does not have a license to sell a copy of the book in the same way as a torrent uploader does not have a license to distribute a copy of the book to you. You as a customer or downloader know that in both cases. I can really not see any significant difference here.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

And when I use a US credit card (yes, foreigners can get them, too) then I have actually fulfilled all conditions for a legal sale on Amazon's US store (or any other company's).

Why do you believe that is a non-copyright infringement sale? It might be a sale nobody will complain about but that is a different thing.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by tompe

Why do you believe that is a non-copyright infringement sale? It might be a sale nobody will complain about but that is a different thing.

The publisher is not making an illegal copy. The vender (who may or may not be the publisher), may have an agreement not to sell you the book, but unless you are presented with a contract stipulating that you can only buy the book if you are in a certain country, you are doing nothing illegal or even immoral.

Often there is no contract or agreement. The same vender sells books at different prices in different countries. Both ebooks and paper books. Sometimes the parent company sets up different subsidiaries to do this sometimes not. Canadian companies shipping to the US often charge US purchasers less, even the little ones. And American companies often charge higher prices to Canadian retailers.

The agreements in question are similar to those that companies have with salesmen who sell door to door. You have a territory that is assigned. You cannot go outside that territory and knock on doors. But if someone comes to you and wants some Avon products, for example, maybe because they work with your brother-in-law you are allowed to sell to them.

As long as the vender does not knowingly sell outside their territory they are not doing anything illegal or immoral either. The contract may specify what lengths the vender has to go to to find out where you live, and they were more stringent at one time. Now an IP check is all that is require in most cases. If the IP checks out then the vender is considered blameless under the law. Personally I think the requirements were relaxed because the publisher would rather sell at a higher price when they can, but are willing to sell lower rather than lose the sale.

Claiming it is piracy is like saying if I walk across the border to buy something at a lower price I am taking it without paying for it.

Claiming it is copyright infringement seems a tad unknowledgeable. The vender has agreed vender with other venders to not knowingly sell outside their territory. Nothing to do with making copies or paying royalties or contracts with the author. The agreement is between venders, not between the copyright holder and the publisher (who may be one and the same). Sometimes the different venders are actually the same company. Copyright infringement only comes into play if you are distributing the book without the rights holder’s permission.
Helen

[tompe]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

The publisher is not making an illegal copy. The vender (who may or may not be the publisher), may have an agreement not to sell you the book, but unless you are presented with a contract stipulating that you can only buy the book if you are in a certain country, you are doing nothing illegal or even immoral.

That is not how it works. In the contracts you have licenses to sell the book in different countries. If you do not have any licenses at all you cannot sell the book. The contract does not say that you are prohibited to sell the book in certain countries.

Just because somebody wants to sell something to you does not mean it is legal or moral for you to buy it.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Claiming it is piracy is like saying if I walk across the border to buy something at a lower price I am taking it without paying for it.

No it is not because the point of sale in that case is in a place were they are allowed to sell the things. When you buy an ebook the point of sale is were you live.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by tompe

No it is not because the point of sale in that case is in a place were they are allowed to sell the things. When you buy an ebook the point of sale is were you live.

Claiming it is piracy is saying I did not pay for it or that the venders did not pay for it. The vender can ask where I live with every sale and they don't. But even if they did, and I lied, it is not piracy because I bought it from them at their asking price even if I lied. I did not take the book without paying for it. They did not violate any copyright agreement by selling it. No more unethical than waiting for a sale in from my POV. The worst a person is guilty of is lying.

I am too lazy to bother to do this because I can get good prices where I live, but I would have no problem with those that are greatly overcharged just because of where they live doing it, but perhaps you think electrons are more expensive in other countries and this justifies the higher prices.

Helen

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by tompe

That is not how it works. In the contracts you have licenses to sell the book in different countries. If you do not have any licenses at all you cannot sell the book. The contract does not say that you are prohibited to sell the book in certain countries.

Just because somebody wants to sell something to you does not mean it is legal or moral for you to buy it.

That is how it works. The seller makes a due dilligence check (ip address, credit card address, whatever) to determine if they can sell the book to you. If you pass that test then the license issued to you is legal. If it is not then that is an issue between the seller and the publisher. Consider the point of sale to be in the country where the VPN tunnel originates if that pleases your sense of propriety. Then all bases are covered. In any case I have paid for the goods and absolutely refuse to consider my behavior immoral. Trying to rip me off with higher prices, that is immoral. And distributor agreements are not my problem.

The way you were arguing you must have been fully in agreement with Amazon removing copies of 1984 from people's Kindles?

[Soldim]

Originally Posted by tompe

That is not how it works. In the contracts you have licenses to sell the book in different countries. If you do not have any licenses at all you cannot sell the book. The contract does not say that you are prohibited to sell the book in certain countries.

That is considering that's everything not allowed is forbidden.

For me, georestrictions are trying to apply a material age provision to digital services. For some things that might work, evidently not here.

For most material sales, it is actually not relevant where the buyer lives, only where the sale takes place. And, by the nature of a material sale, it is also very clear where the sale takes place: there where the goods are handed over to the buyer or start the transfer to the buyer.

With regards to digital sales, the definitions are quite a bit harder to define, since no material transfer of good takes place. Even the location where the bytes start the transfer might be hard to figure out -- often servers are not located in the country where the seller is located.

From my point of view, a sale takes place there where the financial transaction takes place. If I buy something in a German web-shop, and pay with me credit-card, I consider the transaction has taken place in Germany, regardless where I am located. Especially, since as a customer I don't know any better then the servers are located in Germany, and hence transfer of the information starts there.

[abookreader]

Yes, the contracts between the Publisher and the Retailer contain a minimum diligence check that the Retailer must perform. If the Retailer meets the standard set in the Publisher/Retailer Contract, then the Retailer does have the legal right to sell the eBook (license because for the most part Retailers don't sell ebooks, they sell a license to an ebook). That is true even if the Customer is fibbing in a manner that can't be verified by the due diligence check.

There is also a Contract between the Retailer and the Customer that is spelled out in the Terms of Service agreement. Falsifying an address might violate these, and make the account subject to shutdown and the license to an eBook revoked. It's not something I'm too worried about.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Claiming it is piracy is saying I did not pay for it or that the venders did not pay for it.

I have here only used the term "copyright infringement" and not "piracy". I have only claimed that it is copyright infringement.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Soldim

That is considering that's everything not allowed is forbidden.

That is exactly how copyright work. You are not allowed to distribute a copy of a copyrighted work unless you have explicit permission to do it.

[Soldim]

Originally Posted by tompe

That is exactly how copyright work. You are not allowed to distribute a copy of a copyrighted work unless you have explicit permission to do it.

That's not quite how copyright works; regardless, the sellers have explicit permission.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by tompe

That is exactly how copyright work. You are not allowed to distribute a copy of a copyrighted work unless you have explicit permission to do it.

Which the seller does, in this case. They have used pre-approved checking methods to confirm that you are eligible to buy.