Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
It is not just the publishers, it is also European governments who want to collect the tax on your online purchase.
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And I do not have a problem with paying tax to the European governments on purchases I have made from there.
I personally think the publishing industry is shooting themselves in the foot. I can buy a book here in Australia, or buy from overseas the identical book far cheaper, no restrictions, but I can't buy an ebook of a paper-back which is for sale here in Australia because of geographic restrictions. I don't understand why not. It is not like the local retailers are missing out, there is no real local ebook market, and given the price of locally sold books I really think twice before buying locally.
Two things IMHO will happen if the publishers continue down their current path.
1) Ebooks will become far too difficult for people to buy. Too many locally available pbooks will be restricted as an ebook, and workarounds for geographic restrictions will become too much work. So overall people will reduce the number buying (well outside the US anyway).
2) Because of #1 there will be an increase of pirated copies. If people can't buy and they really want something thou shall copy.
My 2 cents.
Edit: No need for a new post. Part of me would like to respect geographic restrictions. Perhaps to help me with this process ebook stores should provide as part of their search facility the option to only display results for books available to your account ie: your geographic region. I'm finding nothing worse than tracking down books ready to buy, build up my cart then find when trying to pay for them that half of them are restricted.