Books on Board asking for my country of residence?

FlorenceArt · 11-07-2008, 02:43 PM

Hi all,

I haven't logged on to Books on Board in a while, and tonight I found a box asking me for my country of residence. Anyone know what they do with this information? If it's for tax reasons I can live with it, but my worry is that they might start limiting access to some ebooks for some countries, and I would NOT like that

Florence

zelda_pinwheel · 11-07-2008, 03:02 PM

i got the same box recently (and wondered for a second if i were going senile, because i don't remember seeing it before...), but i didn't give an answer. i'm not sure what the reasons are either and until i know i'd rather not.

Lemurion · 11-07-2008, 03:33 PM

I saw it, did not respond. None of their business, they have an address for my credit card and that's all they need.

FlorenceArt · 11-07-2008, 04:21 PM

Thank you for the replies, so I'm not alone in not liking this

I did not reply either, but I didn't realize I could still use the site without this

Maybe they will just use it to manage copyright on works that are not expired in all countries? I wouldn't mind that I guess, what I would mind is if some editor decides that they don't want to sell in a specific country, or only through a specific channel. A bit like Amazon refusing to sell me ebooks because I didn't buy their reader

zelda_pinwheel · 11-09-2008, 03:07 PM

i get a bad feeling that this may be related to this.

Hadrien · 11-09-2008, 04:13 PM

Territorial rights are a huge issue for publishers, expect to see more and more of such limitations.

FlorenceArt · 11-09-2008, 04:18 PM

Yes, I was afraid of something like this.

Gibbo · 11-09-2008, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hadrien

Territorial rights are a huge issue for publishers, expect to see more and more of such limitations.

If thats the case then buyers may look at other ways of getting the books and sales will suffer

KurtJohnson · 11-10-2008, 11:53 AM

Recently, a very few publishers have begun stricter enforcement of territory rights, not an issue when ebooks were more marginal to them. This effort seems to be related to UK e-tailers seeking to protect 'turf'. While we disagree in principle with these restrictions, and believe the web should be global, we understand publishers need to control their product in a world of currency exchange rates in constant flux. BooksOnBoard is currently working to develop a solution to satisfy the requirements of these territory restrictions and still meet the needs of our customers.

BooksOnBoard policy has always been to require and retain as little information about customers as possible. We retain only customer email address, first and last name and login ID. The only CC information retained is the last 5 digits, in fact our payment system is such that BooksOnBoard never actually has access to the complete CC number of any of our customers. We are committed to protecting our customer's privacy, we view it as a most important responsibility to do so.

In order to meet the territory requirements of publishers, we now provide a place to capture country of residence, as declared by the customer. If a customer then attempts to purchase a title affected by publisher territory restrictions they are notified when attempting to add it to their cart. Very few of the titles we offer are affected by the territory restrictions. We also hope this trend is limited and other publishers do not follow suit. Books On Board must cooperate with our publisher and distributor partners, but we are thoroughly committed to always advocating what we feel is the best user environment for our customers.

Sincere Regards,

Kurt Johnson
BooksOnBoard

zelda_pinwheel · 11-10-2008, 12:00 PM

thank you for the answer, Kurt. it's really appreciable to have someone directly from BooksOnBoard address our concerns and explain the situation.

I'm glad to know BoB's attitude about this situation (which i completely support) and profoundly chagrined to discover that publishers seem once again to be making the worst possible choice. ironically, i can order a paper book from, say, amazon US and as long as i'm willing to pay the higher shipping rate they'll send it to me anywhere in the world. the idea of limiting internet sales of ebooks based on geographical location is so absurd as to be laughable, were it not a real problem. if UK e-tailers don't want to lose sales to other online booksellers, perhaps they should consider a more realistic pricing policy.

maybe it's time for yet another letter-writing campaign to the publishers... joy.

blunty · 11-10-2008, 12:20 PM

It is always easy, and commonly done on these forums, to put the blame solely on the Publishers. Working for a UK publisher we will often have the rights to a book to be produced in the UK while a different publishing company has the rights in the US. These rights are negotiated and sold usually by authors and their agents to maximise their returns from their intellectual property.
This discrepancy in territorial rights does not sit well with the global internet market but are a consequence of the historical set up in the industry. Any publisher, agent and author must have the ability to sell only to the market they have the rights for. Until every publisher is sold worldwide rights for every book, for every format as well then DRM and territorial restrictions will be with us. And that set up will hurt the smaller non US publishers much more than the Harper Collins and Penguins.
As we do not have the Kindle here in the UK I can not buy e-books from Amazon, even though I have a device and could transfer from my PC (No wi-fi). That is not down to territorial rights, that is just down to Amazon in the main.

=X= · 11-10-2008, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KurtJohnson

Recently, a very few publishers have begun stricter enforcement of territory rights...

Hi Kurt,
Is it possible to collect this information during the purchase of a particular book/publisher who requires this information. This knowledge will empower the consumer to make savvy purchasing decisions as to whether we want to support such publisher with these restrictive policies. Instead of allowing them to hide under BoB and making BoB look like the problem

=X=

zelda_pinwheel · 11-10-2008, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blunty

It is always easy, and commonly done on these forums, to put the blame solely on the Publishers. Working for a UK publisher we will often have the rights to a book to be produced in the UK while a different publishing company has the rights in the US. These rights are negotiated and sold usually by authors and their agents to maximise their returns from their intellectual property.
This discrepancy in territorial rights does not sit well with the global internet market but are a consequence of the historical set up in the industry. Any publisher, agent and author must have the ability to sell only to the market they have the rights for. Until every publisher is sold worldwide rights for every book, for every format as well then DRM and territorial restrictions will be with us. And that set up will hurt the smaller non US publishers much more than the Harper Collins and Penguins.
As we do not have the Kindle here in the UK I can not buy e-books from Amazon, even though I have a device and could transfer from my PC (No wi-fi). That is not down to territorial rights, that is just down to Amazon in the main.

that's a good point, but i think the key concept there is that these problems "are a consequence of the historical set up in the industry." the whole point is that the industry is trying to maintain a way of functioning which is no longer relevant due to the fundamental changes brought about by technological advances.

certainly, it makes sense to negotiate rights based on territory when we are talking about physical objects which will be distributed via chains of physical stores. but when the merchandise is dematerialised and is sold via something called the "world-wide web" (it's right there in the name !!), it might be time to rethink those old limitations.

particularly since, as i mentioned previously, i find it even more ironic that i can buy a paper book from US-based amazon from anywhere in the world, and they will ship it to me. i've done this many times.

so yes, i do place the blame on the side of the publishers, for obstinately clinging to a hopelessly out of date distribution paradigm which is totally irrelevant to today's world.

zelda_pinwheel · 11-10-2008, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by =X=

Hi Kurt,
Is it possible to collect this information during the purchase of a particular book/publisher who requires this information. This knowledge will empower the consumer to make savvy purchasing decisions as to whether we want to support such publisher with these restrictive policies. Instead of allowing them to hide under BoB and making BoB look like the problem

=X=

this seems like an excellent suggestion to me. alternately, if this is technically too complex, could you give us a list of the publishers making this demand ?

Lemurion · 11-10-2008, 04:00 PM

In fairness to publishers, while I don't like it I can see why they are doing it: They're the ones who can get sued.

They're covering their ass.

11-07-2008, 02:43 PM	#1
FlorenceArt High Priestess Posts: 5,761 Karma: 5042529 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Montreuil sous bois, France Device: iPad Pro 9.7, iPhone 6 Plus	Books on Board asking for my country of residence? Hi all, I haven't logged on to Books on Board in a while, and tonight I found a box asking me for my country of residence. Anyone know what they do with this information? If it's for tax reasons I can live with it, but my worry is that they might start limiting access to some ebooks for some countries, and I would NOT like that Florence

11-10-2008, 11:53 AM	#9
KurtJohnson Member Posts: 10 Karma: 100 Join Date: Oct 2008 Device: Cybook, Sony 505	BooksOnBoard: Publisher territory restrictions Recently, a very few publishers have begun stricter enforcement of territory rights, not an issue when ebooks were more marginal to them. This effort seems to be related to UK e-tailers seeking to protect 'turf'. While we disagree in principle with these restrictions, and believe the web should be global, we understand publishers need to control their product in a world of currency exchange rates in constant flux. BooksOnBoard is currently working to develop a solution to satisfy the requirements of these territory restrictions and still meet the needs of our customers. BooksOnBoard policy has always been to require and retain as little information about customers as possible. We retain only customer email address, first and last name and login ID. The only CC information retained is the last 5 digits, in fact our payment system is such that BooksOnBoard never actually has access to the complete CC number of any of our customers. We are committed to protecting our customer's privacy, we view it as a most important responsibility to do so. In order to meet the territory requirements of publishers, we now provide a place to capture country of residence, as declared by the customer. If a customer then attempts to purchase a title affected by publisher territory restrictions they are notified when attempting to add it to their cart. Very few of the titles we offer are affected by the territory restrictions. We also hope this trend is limited and other publishers do not follow suit. Books On Board must cooperate with our publisher and distributor partners, but we are thoroughly committed to always advocating what we feel is the best user environment for our customers. Sincere Regards, Kurt Johnson BooksOnBoard

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11-07-2008, 03:02 PM	#2
zelda_pinwheel zeldinha zippy zeldissima Posts: 27,827 Karma: 921169 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Paris, France Device: eb1150 & is that a nook in her pocket, or she just happy to see you?	i got the same box recently (and wondered for a second if i were going senile, because i don't remember seeing it before...), but i didn't give an answer. i'm not sure what the reasons are either and until i know i'd rather not.

11-07-2008, 03:33 PM	#3
Lemurion eReader Posts: 2,750 Karma: 4968470 Join Date: Aug 2007 Device: Note 5; PW3; Nook HD+; ChuWi Hi12; iPad	I saw it, did not respond. None of their business, they have an address for my credit card and that's all they need.

11-07-2008, 04:21 PM	#4
FlorenceArt High Priestess Posts: 5,761 Karma: 5042529 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Montreuil sous bois, France Device: iPad Pro 9.7, iPhone 6 Plus	Thank you for the replies, so I'm not alone in not liking this I did not reply either, but I didn't realize I could still use the site without this Maybe they will just use it to manage copyright on works that are not expired in all countries? I wouldn't mind that I guess, what I would mind is if some editor decides that they don't want to sell in a specific country, or only through a specific channel. A bit like Amazon refusing to sell me ebooks because I didn't buy their reader

11-09-2008, 03:07 PM	#5
zelda_pinwheel zeldinha zippy zeldissima Posts: 27,827 Karma: 921169 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Paris, France Device: eb1150 & is that a nook in her pocket, or she just happy to see you?	i get a bad feeling that this may be related to this.

11-09-2008, 04:13 PM	#6
Hadrien Feedbooks.com Co-Founder Posts: 2,263 Karma: 145123 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Paris, France Device: Sony PRS-t-1/350/300/500/505/600/700, Nexus S, iPad	Territorial rights are a huge issue for publishers, expect to see more and more of such limitations.

11-09-2008, 04:18 PM	#7
FlorenceArt High Priestess Posts: 5,761 Karma: 5042529 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Montreuil sous bois, France Device: iPad Pro 9.7, iPhone 6 Plus	Yes, I was afraid of something like this.

11-10-2008, 12:00 PM	#10
zelda_pinwheel zeldinha zippy zeldissima Posts: 27,827 Karma: 921169 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Paris, France Device: eb1150 & is that a nook in her pocket, or she just happy to see you?	thank you for the answer, Kurt. it's really appreciable to have someone directly from BooksOnBoard address our concerns and explain the situation. I'm glad to know BoB's attitude about this situation (which i completely support) and profoundly chagrined to discover that publishers seem once again to be making the worst possible choice. ironically, i can order a paper book from, say, amazon US and as long as i'm willing to pay the higher shipping rate they'll send it to me anywhere in the world. the idea of limiting internet sales of ebooks based on geographical location is so absurd as to be laughable, were it not a real problem. if UK e-tailers don't want to lose sales to other online booksellers, perhaps they should consider a more realistic pricing policy. maybe it's time for yet another letter-writing campaign to the publishers... joy.

11-10-2008, 12:20 PM	#11
blunty Enthusiast Posts: 27 Karma: 884 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: London Device: Kindle Fire, iPad, iPhone5, Kindle Paperwhite, Kobo Vox	It is always easy, and commonly done on these forums, to put the blame solely on the Publishers. Working for a UK publisher we will often have the rights to a book to be produced in the UK while a different publishing company has the rights in the US. These rights are negotiated and sold usually by authors and their agents to maximise their returns from their intellectual property. This discrepancy in territorial rights does not sit well with the global internet market but are a consequence of the historical set up in the industry. Any publisher, agent and author must have the ability to sell only to the market they have the rights for. Until every publisher is sold worldwide rights for every book, for every format as well then DRM and territorial restrictions will be with us. And that set up will hurt the smaller non US publishers much more than the Harper Collins and Penguins. As we do not have the Kindle here in the UK I can not buy e-books from Amazon, even though I have a device and could transfer from my PC (No wi-fi). That is not down to territorial rights, that is just down to Amazon in the main.

11-10-2008, 04:00 PM	#15
Lemurion eReader Posts: 2,750 Karma: 4968470 Join Date: Aug 2007 Device: Note 5; PW3; Nook HD+; ChuWi Hi12; iPad	In fairness to publishers, while I don't like it I can see why they are doing it: They're the ones who can get sued. They're covering their ass.