Quote:
Originally Posted by GhostHawk
Go back to your wicked ways, just don't tell anyone.
If you find an author that you really like, and you've read a lot of his work for free, go buy his latest hardcover. He'll get the royaltys, and you'll feel better.
Doesn't have to be a black and white world, there are many many shades of gray.
You made the right choice when you started buying your books.
If the geographical restrictions push you back to the darknets, is that your fault or theirs?
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Unfortunately, this advice is probably the best most people can hope for in the screwed up world of geo restrictions (the evil twin brother of DVD or BluRay region coding!) and publisher wars. It seems geo restrictions are going to take over from DRM as the number one gripe about eBooks - at least DRM can be removed if you wish to!
Unfortunately for them, their desire to fight it out amongst themselves is alienating just about every eBook reader and potential buyer out there. So many people want to do the right thing - pay money for a legal ebook - but they are simply not allowed to.
The only power the consumer has is to speak with their spending power. When deprived of even the option to spend, the only thing one can do is obtain the product through other "suppliers" (i.e. the darknet). We can call these people evil or bad, but they are not solely to blame - they want to buy the damned product!
The above suggestion at least puts some money into the author's (and the evil publisher's) pocket - if only there was a way to get it directly to the author and
really punish the publisher!...
And BTW, I will
never buy a Sony or Kindle reader, primarily because of their early policy of not selling outside the US (devices and ebooks) - I know it's a different issue to the current geo restrictions, but the principle is the same - a decent % of wannabe customers will not forget this treatment in the future - publishers, you have been warned...
