An email from Amazon (regional restrictions)

[kjk]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company

"Now prove you live here or we'll shut you down!"

[Blue Tyson]

Or, if you are going to do Kindle for PC to get free books, just make up a fake id account if you find the one in your real name useful and don't want hassles.

[Blue Tyson]

Another fine example of people spending lots of money to STOP people buying books.

[HarryT]

Perhaps they think that people might be telling fibs about where they live?

[omk3]

Isn't amazon legally covered in that it sells the books in good faith based on the information given by the consumer, I wonder? Does it really have to double-check everything, and go to such extremes as the email above?

[DawnFalcon]

Also to the point, why does it feel that free, PD, books need this sort of protection?

(I believe I know why, and it's the international so-called "whispernet fee", which is basically pure profit to Amazon for Kindle for PC users!)

[becket]

Originally Posted by rhk

I'm curious how it really works, I have a US Kindle 2, US address, US credit card, but my IP is in Switzerland. I have no problem ordering ebooks (downloaded to my computer and transferred via USB to Kindle) and other items (those are shipped to the address in the US).

I haven't had any issues/emails from Amazon (but I hope I'm not jinxing this).

It sounds similar to the US radio stations that stream on line and won't let non US peoploe listen due to the cost of paying more royalty fees, but you can click you are a US citizen and even though your IP address it not in the UK you can listen.
Becky

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by omk3

Isn't amazon legally covered in that it sells the books in good faith based on the information given by the consumer, I wonder? Does it really have to double-check everything, and go to such extremes as the email above?

It wasn't that long ago that publishers pulled books from Mobipocket (and other distro's?) until they improved the ways they handled geo restrictions and put checks in place. It's possible Amazon doesn't want to go through that again.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Perhaps they think that people might be telling fibs about where they live?

And as a consequence you have to provide your government identification to them? That seems just a tad harsh. (never mind everything else)

[dsvick]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Actually this has been suggested and done in certain manners -- e.g. selling the book on an SD Memory card.

I'd hate to see what that would do to the price, unless it was simply a letter that gave you instructions to download it from somewhere.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by dsvick

I'd hate to see what that would do to the price, unless it was simply a letter that gave you instructions to download it from somewhere.

Prices are severely in flux at the moment in any case. Amazon has apparently been taking a loss on it's $9.99 ebooks because the publishers expect the same revenue as from the hardback. I've seen many cases where the ebook was the same price as the hardback at multiple stores.

[fugazied]

The situation is ridiculous but AFAIK the problem lies at the feet of publishers and how they handle/distribute rights on books.

This is how it works as I understand it (I might be wrong!). Stephen King signs up for them to publish the works, then they assign/sell the rights for certain regions to specific publishers (usually a smaller publishing house associated with the main one).

The Australian division/publisher gets money from the books sold in the region in return for distributing it. So the Australian division of penguin gets the rights from the main publishing arm and makes profit from Australian sales. The main publisher doesn't want Australian customers buying from the US via the Internet because the Australian division gets screwed.

They need to have some simple IP matching so the smaller divisions/publishers get their cut and ebooks are available globally.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by fugazied

This is how it works as I understand it (I might be wrong!). Stephen King signs up for them to publish the works, then they assign/sell the rights for certain regions to specific publishers (usually a smaller publishing house associated with the main one).

I don't believe so. As far as I know, "foreign rights" are a separate item. King will go to contract with a US publisher to publish a US edition. His agent will negotiate separate deals with publishers elsewhere in the world.

I'm unaware of any cases where an author sold a book to a US publisher, and let the US publisher handle the foreign rights, and can't imagine why any would want to go for such a deal.
______
Dennis

[HansTWN]

It is totally unreasonable to get angry at Amazon over this. Obviously the publishers threatened them and they had to crack down even more. If they could get away with it, why wouldn't they be selling to anyone worldwide?

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

It is totally unreasonable to get angry at Amazon over this.

Of course, threatening to shitcan a customer's entire entire Amazon account because he dared to download a few free ebooks outside America is a perfectly reasonable response.

I'm dubbing that RIAAconomics.