Quote:
Originally Posted by Sweetpea
The biggest problem I have with the current geo-restrictions is that they only are for electronic books. As Harry pointed out, I can buy a book from anywhere in the world, as long as they ship it to my country. And if it's in paper. But I cannot buy that exact same book, from the exact same publisher in another format: bits. Even though there is not one publisher in my own country that publishes it (the only ones are in Britain and there I am not allowed to buy books either, never mind that one economic market thing of the EU). That's why I'm lying on my Amazon account.
I have (and will be) downloaded books from the dark side (mostly backlogged books though). But I've been replacing them too, once I found out where I could legally buy them.
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I suspect that you are far from alone. What I find so frustrating is the failure of Big Publishing to acknowledge, even implicitly, the reality of the current EBook world. They are completely at the mercy of readers, who, for whatever reason, continue to purchase their product, despite the fact that they can easily and trivially obtain a pirate copy. Amazon generally behaves as if it understands this reality. It strives for reasonable prices, has excellent customer service, and has a system which makes buying EBooks not only convenient and easy but also a pleasurable experience. On the other hand, the large publishers continue to war with the readers on whose goodwill they are so dependent. They act as a cartel, seek to retard the ebook market to preserve the print book market and existing business models, conspire to raise EBook prices (Harper Collins evidently liked the $US18 to $US20 for an EBook) and, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (the fact that they are still in business) seem to cling to the paranoid belief that readers are dishonest and not to be trusted. And, of course, they attempt to artificially recreate geographic barriers which do not exist on the internet so as to cling to their outdated but profitable business models.
Personally I am no longer buying any ebook where the Publisher is setting the price, with rare exceptions for the occasional reasonable pricing. Instead, if there is one of these books that I really want to read, I borrow it from the library, usually as an ebook. If the ebook is not available, I will borrow the print book (which I have done once so far). Publishers have no business setting retail prices, particularly so when the purpose is to eliminate competition at the retail level. If the book is simply not available in my region due to geographic restrictions and I don't want to buy it? Well, in the longer term, I am looking to join a US library. In the shorter term, is piracy an option? I can only say that I would be sorely tempted if this situation arose. I have no moral qualms about depriving the Big 5 publishers of revenue, but the author is another matter.
I was and am a little concerned that borrowing from the library may penalise not only the publisher but also the author. However, a little digging reveals that publishers are also gouging libraries. What a surprise! One can only hope that authors see some of these ill-gotten gains, though I would certainly not be betting on it.