Anyway to bypass regional restrictions?

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Crowl

For those living outside the usa, geographical restrictions are probably a bigger issue than drm, it does more to prevent purchases and reading.

Absolutely and does a lot to promote "alternative" means to acquire those books that a buyer is prevented from buying.

Publishers would deny that though.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by da_jane

I was at an agent/editor session at Romantic Times and Ethan Ellenberg (agent who reps quite a few romance authors) said that the problem is that print and digital rights are negotiated together and cannot be separated so you can't sell World English digital rights unless you are selling World English print rights. The foreign print rights can be very lucrative for authors. Most foreign rights (rights to territories outside the home market) are sold with translation rights (ie. sale to Spain for English and Spanish rights).

Perhaps authors should become aware then the also a lot of people from non-English speaking countries very much like to read English. Further more, it is of course a load of horse manure. I can buy any version I would like in any language I would like from my comfy chair. However, it must be a dead tree book. So if the make a difference between a digital file and a 'real' book in selling, they should also make the difference in rights.
I even think the authors should be glad about the difference. They can sell the digital rights separately and therefore get more out of it.

[GeoffC]

another way to bypass these restrictions would be to .... (erm) .... re-locate ....

[astra]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

another way to bypass these restrictions would be to .... (erm) .... re-locate ....

Why?! Brilliant idea!

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Interesting. In what way is geographical restriction a necessity? I think the general consensus on this forum that it is the almost as bad as DRM... Care to elaborate?

DRM is peanuts compared to geo restrictions...

Originally Posted by Crowl

For those living outside the usa, geographical restrictions are probably a bigger issue than drm, it does more to prevent purchases and reading.

And pointing people towards not-so-legal means.

I also prefer to buy rather then to download. But now I'm getting so pissed off by these ***** restrictions, I'm seriously thinking about returning to the dark side.

[sabredog]

I hear you!

[obs20]

I paid thebookdepository.co.uk with paypal and have been able to override the regional restrictions. As a matter of fact I've just downloaded The Infinities by John Banville for only $9.03 saving myself about $7.00. Thebookdepository is a nice site but they are frequently out of stock of many titles. One bonus is that they often have books that have not yet been published in the USA.

[Logseman]

DRM is much more easily circumvented than geographical restrictions, yet it gets a lot of flak as if it were the main problem. Unlike DRM, the publishers of content are in control of those restrictions, and boy do they use them. I'm absolutely fed up of finding Youtube videos locked up just because I use a Spanish version of my software and I happened to live in Germany.

[Lush]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

I live in Australia, and can buy books quite legally from Amazon via Kindle for PC. Of course I have to remove the DRM to read them on my own ereader, but that's another question.

The main problem I have is when they sell me a Topaz book. It's not hard to remove the DRM, but the end result is an HTML file so I would have to put it through Calibre, or hand build it into an ePub.

Regards, Alex

Alex, do the dreaded Geogrophic Restrictions apply to ebooks purchased from Amazon?

Also does removing the DRM involve using that Python script thing?
I'm either too dumb or not computer savvy enough to use it.

Lush.

[jude]

I live in Australia and have been able to buy any ebook I want from Amazon using the kindle app. I was surprised actually as ereader and fictionwise would hardly sell me anything at all. www.cyberread.com is also really good.

[sabredog]

Love to know how you do the bypass. I have to go through hoops and a VPN to even get a valid purchase link

[Lush]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Love to know how you do the bypass. I have to go through hoops and a VPN to even get a valid purchase link

I haven't been able to bypass the restrictions either.
I've tried hidemyass.com, as well as all the tricks I've read in these forums, but they don't work for me.

Perhaps it's something to do with residing in Australia. The successful "bypassers" seem to be mostly based in Europe.

[sabredog]

The VPN service (based in USA) I use does give me a valid "Available in your Country" link or suchlike though.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Lush

I haven't been able to bypass the restrictions either.
I've tried hidemyass.com, as well as all the tricks I've read in these forums, but they don't work for me.

Perhaps it's something to do with residing in Australia. The successful "bypassers" seem to be mostly based in Europe.

A lot of the free servers at sites such as hidemyass.com are known to be proxies used for hiding foreign IPs. So try a number of different ones. I personally never had problems purchasing books at US sites.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Lush

I haven't been able to bypass the restrictions either.
I've tried hidemyass.com, as well as all the tricks I've read in these forums, but they don't work for me.

Perhaps it's something to do with residing in Australia. The successful "bypassers" seem to be mostly based in Europe.

Is it an IP address problem?

Could try something else - if using the right OS. - The AOL desktop software can give you a US ip address, if it is an IP address problem.

You choose to set up a new 'home network' connection and use that. I tested it, it works, gives you an AOL ip.

Didn't try buying a book, but did try last.fm for a few minutes to stream some songs, and that worked, when it wouldn't otherwise.