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Old 11-29-2011, 08:37 AM   #1
xenoglaux
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Regional lock-in?

I'm buying my first reader and I'm almost sure at this point it will be a Kobo Touch.

I'm living in the UK now, and will be moving to Canada next spring. I have a Canadian credit card.

If I buy an Kobo Touch from W.H. Smith now, register it (or whatever you have to do...), buy books, and start using it right away, will I encounter any problems when I move to Canada and want to keep buying books and using the reader?

How do the geo restrictions work for Kobos, exactly? Can I get around them by providing an address in the region I want to buy from? Or do I need a proxy?

What I don't want is to buy the thing now and then always have to connect via proxy when I move to Canada. What I do want is to have a decent selection of ebooks available directly from the reader, for the region I'm currently located in.

I am assuming I will be able to buy books from anyone, anywhere, providing I shop on a PC using a proxy in the appropriate region, and then strip DRM as necessary. (It's just not something I want to have to be doing all the time) Is this correct?

thanks if anyone can help (:
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Old 11-29-2011, 10:19 AM   #2
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Your problem will occur only if the kepub books you buy and load on your device after purchasing it come from the WHSmith proprietary store. The Touch can sync with only one store. So, if from the get-go, you buy from the Brit version of kobobooks.com, and later purchase from the Canadian version of kobobooks.com, you should be fine. You can use Adobe ePUBs from anywhere, without any problem, as long as you use the same ADE account.

If you know for sure you are moving to Canada, I would create a kobo account and put honest and accurate information in when you do it. When you move, change the details so that your Canadian address and credit card are now the identifiers for your Kobo account. As an alternative, I suppose you can go Canadian from the get go, and always shop the Canadian store.
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Old 11-29-2011, 10:28 AM   #3
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Hi Xenoglaux,

It should be a seamless experience, except some books that you may want to have bought in the UK may not be available in Canada. Books that you have already bought are yours forever regardless of where you bought them.

On Kobo, the service first checks your billing address country if you are logged in. If you are not logged in or do not have a billing address country, it checks your IP and resolves that to a country. The content is then restricted based on which country the service "thinks" you're in.

So if you have a canadian credit card with a canadian billing address, you'll be viewing Canadian-rights content even if you're logging in from the UK.

For your last point a couple of things:
1. As long as you can download a book in a supported format (proxy or not), you can add it to your Kobo Touch.
2. Kobo Touch supports Adobe DRM, which many independent online booksellers use for their DRM. As such you would probably find no need to strip the DRM.

Hope that helps,
Sameer.
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Old 11-29-2011, 10:45 AM   #4
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Sameer,

If a person buys as a Brit and then buys as a Canadian, will the Brit books not available in Canada sync after the address/credit card become Canadian? I know that the Adobe books are not a problem--I am asking about the kepubs.
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Old 11-29-2011, 11:24 AM   #5
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Thanks taming and Sameer. I hope the answer to taming's question is yes..."yours forever" should mean that I'd never lose access to a book I've bought, no matter what region it's restricted to or what region I am currently in.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SameerH View Post
2. Kobo Touch supports Adobe DRM, which many independent online booksellers use for their DRM. As such you would probably find no need to strip the DRM.
I'll probably try to keep drm-free backups of everything I buy in any case, but one case where I might "need" to strip drm is if a book's only available for Kindle, then I believe I'd have to de-drm and convert to epub.
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Old 11-29-2011, 12:06 PM   #6
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Yes, the books (kePubs) are yours forever. There may be a complication if you delete the book from your library and can't find it again to add it back (for free) due to the restrictions. I'll look into that.
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Old 01-05-2012, 02:46 AM   #7
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@SameerH: In summary if I'm traveling for work as long as my billing address/cc is that of my country of origin I will be afforded access to books for that country/region regardless of where I am currently (physically)?

I'd be curious if you have an answer to your last question re: if a book is deleted from ones library that was purchased in another region.
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