MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

ProfCrash · 02-07-2012, 10:43 AM

As I understand it, the law is in place to protect copyrights. If multiple publishers have the right to publish the book in different countries, the e-book will be affected. So if book X has a different publisher in the US and the Netherlands, someone from the Netherlands cannot buy the book from a US based store because doing so would violate the rights of the Publisher in the Netherlands.

Since Smashwords allows authors and Publishers to choose where the book can be sold, and Independent author who holds all of his/her own rights can choose to sell it world wide without any problems. So BearMountainBooks owns the rights to his/her books and can choose to sell them globally. Stephen King does not and has multiple Publishers in multiple countries who can choose to sell those books in their individual country. His e-books are available in the US but might not be available some place else. The people living in some place else are not allowed to by the book from the US because Amazon is not allowed to sell it outside of the US.

Everyone talks about Amazon's 1984 (sorry Harry) mess. That was a case where MobileReference, the Publisher, accidently included the US on its list of countries that it could sell the book to. 1984 was in the public domain in many countries but not in the US. MobileReference did not have the right to sell it in the US. Once the US Publisher of 1984 realized 1984 was being sold by MobileReference they went to Amazon and complained. Amazon, stupidly, immediatly stopped selling MobilReference's version and pulled the book from peoples readers.

Amazon had to stop the sales of the book immediatly because MobileReference did not have the right to sell the book in the US. I do not know if the Publisher was selling the book in the US, I don't think they were because I remember people being excited that it was available in the US but it was availabe in Australia and geo restricted in the US.

MobileReference books were not available for sale in the US for several weeks as Amazon had to go through and check to make sure that all of their books were being sold to the proper countries. It was a pain in the ass for MobileReference.

02-07-2012, 10:43 AM	#301
ProfCrash Tea Enthusiast Posts: 8,554 Karma: 75384937 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Somewhere in the USA Device: Kindle1, Kindle DX Graphite, K3 3G, IPad 3, PW2	As I understand it, the law is in place to protect copyrights. If multiple publishers have the right to publish the book in different countries, the e-book will be affected. So if book X has a different publisher in the US and the Netherlands, someone from the Netherlands cannot buy the book from a US based store because doing so would violate the rights of the Publisher in the Netherlands. Since Smashwords allows authors and Publishers to choose where the book can be sold, and Independent author who holds all of his/her own rights can choose to sell it world wide without any problems. So BearMountainBooks owns the rights to his/her books and can choose to sell them globally. Stephen King does not and has multiple Publishers in multiple countries who can choose to sell those books in their individual country. His e-books are available in the US but might not be available some place else. The people living in some place else are not allowed to by the book from the US because Amazon is not allowed to sell it outside of the US. Everyone talks about Amazon's 1984 (sorry Harry) mess. That was a case where MobileReference, the Publisher, accidently included the US on its list of countries that it could sell the book to. 1984 was in the public domain in many countries but not in the US. MobileReference did not have the right to sell it in the US. Once the US Publisher of 1984 realized 1984 was being sold by MobileReference they went to Amazon and complained. Amazon, stupidly, immediatly stopped selling MobilReference's version and pulled the book from peoples readers. Amazon had to stop the sales of the book immediatly because MobileReference did not have the right to sell the book in the US. I do not know if the Publisher was selling the book in the US, I don't think they were because I remember people being excited that it was available in the US but it was availabe in Australia and geo restricted in the US. MobileReference books were not available for sale in the US for several weeks as Amazon had to go through and check to make sure that all of their books were being sold to the proper countries. It was a pain in the ass for MobileReference.