Quote:
Originally Posted by thinkpadx
Geo-restrictions is one thing I absolutely do not get. Who benefits from it? it's just a dinosaur copied straight off from the regular publishing industry which makes no sense whatsoever on e-books.
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*sigh*
The primary reason for geo restrictions are the contracts with the authors, which specify who can sell what and where. It's the AUTHORS who are the primary beneficiaries.
• Ebooks are literally just getting started. An author would have to be a moron to fork over all international rights to one and only one publisher at this point in time, unless they only care about selling books in their own country.
• It takes more than five minutes to renegotiate contracts, especially since there are hundreds of thousands -- possibly millions -- of contracts to review and amend.
• India is a large and complicated market, with cultural sensitivities that will likely go right over the head of most non-Indians. For example, Richard Gere kissed a Bollywood actress on the cheek at an AIDS benefit in 2007, and riots ensued in numerous cities.
Riots. Do you really think that a US publisher is going to successfully navigate that market?
• I hate to shock you with this, but... people in different nations speak different languages (gasp!). Someone has to pay for the translations, and decide where those resources are best allocated. A US or UK company may not have access to the best translators.
• As ebooks pick up steam, the availability problems will largely get resolved.
Sure, it'd be swell if all content could be distributed like the Web. But that's not an economic reality, as the Web is free (or to be specific, ad-supported) and books are not.
So basically, unless the entire planet decides to speak one language (Chinese perhaps?), adopts one single culture, standardizes on one currency (good luck with that), and harmonizes all sales tax laws, geo restrictions still make some sense and in particular benefit the authors.