Quote:
Originally Posted by orwell2k
I guess we're all 
SNIPPED
Anyway, we're here to talk about eReaders, and I'm yet to hear any convincing argument as to why the Sony can't be shipped outside the US. I'm not talking about the one or two resellers that do it, at huge cost, and the limited expansion into Canada and UK. I'm talking about having a product for everyone to see on the Web for a few years, advertising it for sale on the web, but not shipping outside the US.
Apart from the obvious "we don't want to..." answer (after all, that's Sony's right), or the more tenuous "it doesn't make business sense...," I just don't get it. What legal issues are there for a device with no wireless (PRS-500/505) and no dangerous components (e.g. explosives, chemicals, etc.)?
And what does Sony care if it ships to Pigsknuckle, Arkansas for $10 or Lederhosen, Germany for $50? Being in business I figured they wouldn't care if they got paid in greenbacks, euros, rubles, dinars, rupees or even those cursed $CDN to the north! It's all revenue and sales to them.
DVD region coding is evil but almost understandable from a pure greed and market tyranny point of view. But we're talking eBooks here! I can buy any paperback in a bookstore in Timbuktu (provided they have an English language section) that I can buy in the US. In fact, I can often have a more diverse selection outside the US! But those same books can't be bought as freely in e-format outside the US (Sony and Amazon online stores are restricted to US credit cards and postal addresses, even though nothing is mailed), and heaven forbid I should wish to read them on a mobile eReader!
I'm sure someone can explain it all to me. Meanwhile I'm gonna ignore Sony and Amazon Kindle (especially now that it's Oprah's choice!) for the rest of my life and settle back and read my BeBook (for info, I'm currently reading Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" - if my above comments don't annoy a few people, I'm sure my choice of reading material will...) |
Essentially it has to do with rights issues.
The gist of the matter is that for most English language books the North American and European rights are sold separately. Any e-bookstore naturally gets the books from the rightsholder in the country where that bookstore is located.
In other words you can't necessarily get the same book in the US and Timbuktu - The US publisher probably doesn't have the rights to distribute that book in Timbuktu.
Many of them sell worldwide based (as far as I know) on the principle that the transaction takes place in the country where the store is located; much like a European visitor in the US buying a book in Borders. They can still take it home even if the US publisher doesn't have European rights to the book.
This is fine for pure e-book stores, but not for someone like Sony.
If they sell hardware in Germany, they need to make sure they have the rights for that territory for any book (or any book bought with a credit or coupon) bundled with the reader. That means they either set up a store for each country or partner with a local store to make sure they have the right editions. Essentially the reader being a physical object puts them into that country as far as rights are concerned.
It doesn't matter for books bought from stores like Fictionwise, but with Sony's own DRM being tied to the device it certainly does matter for Connect.
That's why Sony Canada allows access to the Connect store and Sony UK uses Waterstones: different rights. (Though it gets messy with Canada because some books have North American rights and others have Commonwealth rights- so sometimes Canadians get the US editions and other times they get the UK editions.)
Making deals in all those countries takes time.