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Originally Posted by blogbook
But that is exactly my point. If point of sale would be at the vendor's (like pbooks) you don't need international rights to sell and transfer them online and all existing contracts stay valid.
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...and unfortunately, that is not how things work. In most locations when I mail-order a physical object, the point of sale is still my residence, not the location of the retailer.
Let's say that somehow you get every nation in the world to change the point of sale to the retailer's location. The next day, Belize announces they will drop online sales taxes to 1.0%; within a few weeks major etailers relocate their businesses to Belize, and the other 194 nations in the world lose a ton of sales tax revenue. So where is the incentive to make this change...?
Not to mention that the various publishers and subsidiaries will also perceive this as a massive loss of revenues in favor of someone else -- or an opportunity to exploit contracts to their advantage. For example, let's say the French subsidiary of Random House has a lower royalty rate with an author than the UK subsidiary; so RH decides the French subsidiary will get the "international rights" -- and the author gets screwed.
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Originally Posted by blogbook
Buying ebooks across borders is not about annoying the local publishers and in most cases not even about saving money. It is about availability.
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Yup, that's exactly what I said. And as availability improves, people will care less and less about regional restrictions.
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Originally Posted by blogbook
....I am quite sure most selling and distribution software could handle this. And if several shops decide they do not want the hassle others will fill in.
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I concur, but again a) this is only one issue among many and b) it won't be resolved overnight.
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Originally Posted by blogbook
Personally I think it would be easier to change the legal definition of "point of sale" for ebooks than to renegotiate existing contracts or trying to restructure the whole publishing industry.
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No, it really won't. The marketplace will sort out the availability issues long before you could possibly convince any nation to change its sales tax laws.
I mean, really. Have you ever read some of these laws? The "Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement" is 181 pages. It has taken states
10 years to accept it, and it's still not accepted by 6 US states. And that's an attempt to make a "simpler" sales tax setup -- where the location of the customer is what determines the payment of a sales tax.
Getting every nation, let alone every municipality in those states, to do a 180º turn and all get on the same page in a short time span is pure fantasy. It's not happening.
Fortunately, the availability issues will eventually get resolved as ebook sales become a bigger part of the market.