How are geographic restrictions affecting you?

[Vzzzbx]

Originally Posted by lordvetinari2

I just cannot accept ebooks as more expensive than pbooks.

That right there is the thing that's working against digital music in Australia. I can buy an album on iTunes for $16.99, or in many cases I can walk into a shop and buy the CD, complete with packaging, for $9.99. Hear that? That's the sound of Australians being shafted.

Consumers are not mugs. We know there's no material or delivery cost in an ebook. Charging a premium for an intangible piece of software is not only witless, it promotes disloyalty and mistrust, and it drives consumers back to shops or forces them to consider nefarious means.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by lordvetinari2

I just cannot accept ebooks as more expensive than pbooks.

They pretty much are really. However publishers simply desire to make bigger profit from their hardcover sales.

[Blue Tyson]

[QUOTE=HansTWN;1051150]
It makes no sense to compare physical books to ebooks. Sure you can buy a physical book in the US if it is more expensive in Australia. But you would pay more for postage than the price difference is and pay import tax, if applicable. So small shipments of physical books are no threat to smaller distributors' higher prices and distribution rights.
QUOTE]

There is no import tax.

The book depository also does not charge postage. We also have the choice of the US or UK version, whichever is cheaper.

A trade paperback in Australia can be up to $37. (Call it $30 in monopoly for exchange rates, etc.) Alastair Reynolds' Terminal World is $35.00 at Dymocks.com.au for example.

The same book from Amazon is likely to be about $12. Add $5 for their handling fee. Add $5 for the postage they add. $22. (25 max). Significantly cheaper.

Book Depository price might be $17.

Or another example

Terminal World hardback, Alastair Reynolds = $46.95 at Borders.com.au

Book Depository - $25.98


It is ALWAYS cheaper to buy the new physical book elsewhere.

You can get a mass market paperback sent to you for $10. Or buy one in a shop for $20, same place.

[Ben Thornton]

From the UK, I get 42 results for Philip Dick, compared to 21 results from Waterstone which look, at a glance, much more expensive. Kobo gives lots of results but mostly not to in-copyright novels. Amazon looks by far the best selection available from here, although I would agree that it's not as good as Amazon in the US. My hope is that time will fix that.

(in response to Lordvetinari2's post above)

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

From the UK, I get 42 results for Philip Dick, compared to 21 results from Waterstone which look, at a glance, much more expensive. Kobo gives lots of results but mostly not to in-copyright novels. Amazon looks by far the best selection available from here, although I would agree that it's not as good as Amazon in the US. My hope is that time will fix that.

(in response to Lordvetinari2's post above)

You also need to be aware that the Amazon US figures are stuffed with multiple copies of the same thing.
There are 10 separate ebooks for Philip K Dick's Beyond Lies the Wub. 9 for The Defenders. 8 for the Crystal Crypt, and so on. And that isn't including at least half a dozen short story collections including these.
There may not actually be any more distinct works available at Amazon US than anywhere else, the figures are just inflated more.

[lordvetinari2]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

You also need to be aware that the Amazon US figures are stuffed with multiple copies of the same thing.

Exactly, I left out all the duplicates. That took me a while!

For instance, Stephen King's ebooks tend to appear twice in the Amazon store, specially in the US one. Neil Gaiman has his Fragile Things short story compilation divided in separate bundles, so I only counted the complete one. Searching for George R.R. Martin in the Kobo store returns many public domain books from Google Books by other authors with a similar name.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by lordvetinari2

Exactly, I left out all the duplicates. That took me a while!

Hmm. If I view Philip K Dick's author page on Amazon and choose the Kindle bibliography, I get 44 books, which is quite a bit less than your 158.

[estrial]

Currently feeling frustrated with 101 ebooks available to the US but not to Australia. Why is this so?? I recall reading about someone who called up penguin to ask why they had not made the certain book available to Australia, and they said it was Amazon's decision.

So really... why? Its not like im not willing to pay for my books.. It's just that I can't get them Sadly, you cant "Gift" ebooks. Other wise I'd happily pay someone to get my books for me.

[lordvetinari2]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Hmm. If I view Philip K Dick's author page on Amazon and choose the Kindle bibliography, I get 44 books, which is quite a bit less than your 158.

I think I meant "58", and the "1" somehow got in the way. Sorry!

Anyway, there are neither 158, nor 58, nor even 44. I copied all the titles resulting from clicking on "Philip K. Dick" as the author (not the Amazon author page), removed all the duplicates by sorting the list alphabetically in Word and the result is 52 titles in the US Kindle Store. Please see attached txt for the whole list.

[malliemcg]

It's funny, but I first bought an eBook (.lit) about 13 years ago, around the time Diablo2 was released, 3 years later the store I got it from closed up their servers and I could no longer authorise that book and read it, it's now a bunch of useless bits. It impacted my decisions when it came to digital media.

Geographic restrictions are extremely annoying, from a personal perspective - I did not buy any DVD's until after deCSS was written, released and I'd then confirmed I could personally rip/re-encode a DVD.

When I was in university I would get content from fellow students, several "plays for sure" schemes came out - but I had both a Mac and PC so I could not participate and have my music everywhere, iTunes came out eventually, and I did not buy until I could ensure that use the tool to strip the "fair"play DRM scheme from them. Today iTunes music is DRM free, and I buy my music without worrying that I won't be able to play it on my next PC, my next portable audio device or anything happening to the iTunes store as I don't need to connect to it again unless I want to buy more music. (I don't buy Movies/TV Shows because they're DRM encumbered, but I do buy iPhone apps - because they're not portable and I don't expect them to be their utility is in the use of them on an iPhone, not the content).

Today I'm looking at purchasing an eBook reader and it seems big corporations still have not learned - they restrict me from purchasing from where I live, they lock down my copies and I have to get permission to read. The second is resolvable, the first is damn right annoying. Yes I will turn to the dark net after making several attempts to purchase legitimately. If you won't sell me what I want and you'll sell it to someone else because they live in a different geographic location to me, well that's irritating (I wonder if you could pull racist from it...) I'll get it from the dude who's prepared to give it to anyone for no cost. (I will also seek alternative resources like baen, but if there is no way for me to get the must read title XYZ other than darknet...)

It's not about cost, it's about access. I don't want a pbook, I want an eBook, I want to be able to read that book on any device I have today or possibly in the future and I want to buy it from my home.

The publishers need to stop being so controlling so that I can give them my money. We'd both be happier for it.

[Vzzzbx]

Originally Posted by malliemcg

If you won't sell me what I want and you'll sell it to someone else because they live in a different geographic location to me, well that's irritating (I wonder if you could pull racist from it...)

You certainly can.

If I opened a bricks-and-mortar shop and sold my goods to everyone except, say, people who were born in China, I'd be in all sorts of trouble, and rightly so. No court in the country would accept a geographic divide-and-conquer strategy as a reasonable excuse for locking out an entire race of people.

I understand that geographic restrictions on internet sales are all about protecting local industries, but those industries have plenty of time to see change coming and act accordingly. If they're not agile enough to adapt and survive -- or, more accurately, thrive -- that's their problem; it should never be ours. Compare Kodak, which responded quickly to digital photography and succeeded, with Agfa, which didn't.

Kim Carr is leading some daft government-funded ebook strategy panel, populated with representatives of the old industry guard, to spend a year or so determining how Australia should move into ebooks. While that great lumbering dinosaur is wasting time having meetings and imagining a bright new digital economy in 2012, we're here right now trying our hardest to give them money, and they won't take it. All because we're not in the right country.

And don't start me on device lock-in. I'd be here all day.

[ignis]

is there no way to circumvent/bypass FW geo restrictions anymore? I have been trying, with no success, to find some site where I can buy Scott Lynch's books. but it seems that nobody wants my money these days.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Vzzzbx

You certainly can.

If I opened a bricks-and-mortar shop and sold my goods to everyone except, say, people who were born in China, I'd be in all sorts of trouble, and rightly so. No court in the country would accept a geographic divide-and-conquer strategy as a reasonable excuse for locking out an entire race of people.

I understand that geographic restrictions on internet sales are all about protecting local industries, but those industries have plenty of time to see change coming and act accordingly. If they're not agile enough to adapt and survive -- or, more accurately, thrive -- that's their problem; it should never be ours. Compare Kodak, which responded quickly to digital photography and succeeded, with Agfa, which didn't.

Kim Carr is leading some daft government-funded ebook strategy panel, populated with representatives of the old industry guard, to spend a year or so determining how Australia should move into ebooks. While that great lumbering dinosaur is wasting time having meetings and imagining a bright new digital economy in 2012, we're here right now trying our hardest to give them money, and they won't take it. All because we're not in the right country.

And don't start me on device lock-in. I'd be here all day.

I won't and I agree!

[GERGE]

Originally Posted by ignis

is there no way to circumvent/bypass FW geo restrictions anymore? I have been trying, with no success, to find some site where I can buy Scott Lynch's books. but it seems that nobody wants my money these days.

It is always very easy to bypass geographic restrictions. Just use an U.S. VPN.

http://www.hideipvpn.com/
http://www.ultravpn.fr/
http://proxpn.com/ (this is what I use with B&N, they have Locke Lamora)
http://thefreevpn.com/
http://www.anchorfree.com/downloads/hotspot-shield/

I can always buy paper books with their U.S. price in Turkey or have them imported within two weeks without paying for postage or tax (Turkey doesn't have any tax on books anyway). Everyone of them. It is kinda strange that you can't do that in a English-speaking country.

[Vzzzbx]

Booksellers are increasingly rejecting foreign credit cards. What works for you today might not work next week.