The morality of circumventing geographical restrictions only to buy cheaper ebooks

[athenat]

Originally Posted by abookreader

Well just to add fuel to the fire, sometimes it is a different Publisher.

For instance the book I was considering.

Publisher A has the rights to sell in the US with a release date next week. Right now the pre-order price is $10.99 on Amazon.

Publisher B has the rights to sell in the UK and the book has been for sale for over a week now. Right now the price on Amazon is $5.41

So if I hop onto a VPN and purchase giving a UK address. Amazon will get paid (likely less). The author will get paid (probably less but it depends on the contract.) Publisher A loses a sale. I'm supposed to be their customer given my passport. Publisher B gains a sale, they aren't supposed to get anything from me.

It still doesn't bother me though I understand the position of others take that it is morally wrong and against my Amazon TOS to deceive using IPs and different addresses. I just don't agree with their opinion.

Proved my point... Why do I have to worry about contracts that were done behind closed doors and in private? Amazon will get paid less because it will make the difference up in mass quantity and will break even eventually. At the end of the day publisher's and authors are looking out for their bottom line. Let's sell this book for a lesser price in the US, Canada or China because most likely people will buy it in mass quantities or ect. Let's sell it in France for a higher price because we have studied the consumer in this geographical area and most likely there will not be mass buying. Where's the moral in that? It's just plain supply and demand. So all this mumbo jumbo language that Kobo or Amazon puts on their website about you have to make sure you are buying in your geographical area based on your IP address is to protect their business and their bottom line. If any smart consumer can research a certain area and buy at a different price what's the problem? I have cousins that live in another country and attend College...their textbooks sell way cheaper in the US than in their respective countries. When they visit or if I can, I buy their textbooks for them and ship it to them (still comes out cheaper)....so am I or my cousins morally cheating the publisher? I don't think so.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by danicca

What's interesting is that similar rules don't apply for print books. Even if ebook is geographically restricted, I could probably order print book. Wouldn't the second publisher and author lose the money in that case as well?

Actually, and I know this may sound counter-intuitive but exactly the same rules do apply regarding print and electronic books. Each publisher buys the rights for a given territory and can only sell in that territory.

What makes the difference is that when you order a print book from an overseas seller, the transaction is legally considered to have occurred at their place of business, but when you purchase an ebook it's your billing address that they use to determine the location of the transaction for taxation and rights purposes.

As for geographical restrictions, I won't circumvent them just for price.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Seriously, publisher A should get their act together and sell for a reasonable price. And what does publisher A mean to you or me, anyway?

What does the author mean to you and me anyway? So why not just download every book and not pay anything. Enough people pay for the author to continue to write so why would I care?

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by danicca

What's interesting is that similar rules don't apply for print books. Even if ebook is geographically restricted, I could probably order print book. Wouldn't the second publisher and author lose the money in that case as well?

And those Americans, shouldn't they offer to pay more to be moral?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by danicca

What's interesting is that similar rules don't apply for print books. Even if ebook is geographically restricted, I could probably order print book. Wouldn't the second publisher and author lose the money in that case as well?

Yes, but custom costs and postage usually make it more expensive to buy in another market.

[Soldim]

Originally Posted by tompe

What does the author man to you and me anyway? So why not just download every book and not pay anything. Enough people pay for the author to continue to write so why would I care?

I do care for the authors and understand they want to sell books for a reasonable price. If they set a reasonable prince, generally decided together with their publisher, you really think they object to someone buying their books for that price?

Personally, I strongly doubt any author prefers me to download their books as you advocate.

Authors and publishers are free to set different prices for different markets -- and I am free to choose the market where I buy a book.

[abookreader]

Originally Posted by tompe

What does the author man to you and me anyway? So why not just download every book and not pay anything. Enough people pay for the author to continue to write so why would I care?

Well now we're back to the idea that Consumers have some moral obligation to put aside their own best interests in order to falsely prop up the current structure of the author/agent/publisher/retailer structure. Next up will be the claim that unless everybody agrees to pay $12.99 for all their books, literacy will disappear from the face of the planet.

You may think that you need to act in such a manner, but I really don't. So I do what I do when I figure it is worth my while.

And while shipping costs etc usually make it more expensive to order a book overseas and have it shipped to your home, nobody stands around screaming at you that you are an immoral heathen that might as well just go steal books as buy from an International source. They just think you're weird and they wonder why your book covers look different from theirs.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by tompe

What does the author man to you and me anyway? So why not just download every book and not pay anything. Enough people pay for the author to continue to write so why would I care?

The author worked for my enjoyment, the local publisher is trying to rob me. I try to help and reward those who do good things for me and not screw them over. Might seem like an alien concept to you.

By circumventing geographical restrictions we boldly pave the way for a global digital marketplace for the benefit of all.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

And those Americans, shouldn't they offer to pay more to be moral?

Hail no!!!
Not when it is other people's twisted mores at issue.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The author worked for my enjoyment, the local publisher is trying to rob me. I try to help and reward those who do good things for me and not screw them over. Might seem like an alien concept to you.

Not to me.
Or the savvier, new school authors.
Geo restrictions are the very definition of a legacy business model and on the way out. The transition, like all big business model transitions, is messy but we'll soon enough be rid of this remnant of 19th century business practices and mores.

[Mivo]

Originally Posted by abookreader

... understand the position of others take that it is morally wrong and against my Amazon TOS to deceive using IPs and different addresses.

In my view, a TOS of that kind is immoral and invasive in the first place. Amazon shouldn't even look at the IP addresses of their customers.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Mivo

In my view, a TOS of that kind is immoral and invasive in the first place. Amazon shouldn't even look at the IP addresses of their customers.

Nonetheless, Amazon is the one that stands to get sued if they *don't* respect the bounds of their contracts.

There is no morality in corporate contracts, just legalities.
Either the terms of contract are legal or they're not and if they are it doesn't matter whose sense of propriety is offended.
Trying to drag morality into it is the very definition of irrelevance.

[caleb72]

I actually wonder what the impact would be to having only global publishing rights. Has anyone tried to project how that would change things? Do you think it could wipe out the presence of bigger publishers in smaller countries? Could there be any impact on the availability of English works (for example) in other languages?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Soldim

I do care for the authors and understand they want to sell books for a reasonable price.

Most authors I have heard talking about these kind of things want to make as much money as possible. And that is the reason they sell rights for different geographical regions. I have never heard an author talk about a fair price for a book. I suppose the author would not think it is fair if the publisher increases the price without the author getting compensated.

[danicca]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Actually, and I know this may sound counter-intuitive but exactly the same rules do apply regarding print and electronic books. Each publisher buys the rights for a given territory and can only sell in that territory.

What makes the difference is that when you order a print book from an overseas seller, the transaction is legally considered to have occurred at their place of business, but when you purchase an ebook it's your billing address that they use to determine the location of the transaction for taxation and rights purposes.

As for geographical restrictions, I won't circumvent them just for price.

I stand corrected. But the end result is that I'm buying from same retailer from same adress and with same credit card, but it's treated differently.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The author worked for my enjoyment, the local publisher is trying to rob me. I try to help and reward those who do good things for me and not screw them over. Might seem like an alien concept to you.

By circumventing geographical restrictions we boldly pave the way for a global digital marketplace for the benefit of all.

You know that the publisher most probably worked a lot to enhance the book also. And they made it possible to publish it also.

The alien concept is your method of arbitrarily and wrongly assume things about authors and publishers and then use that as motivation to behave in an immoral way.

And by boldly download from torrents we pave the way for a transformed market with much more things on offer. So why do you not do that also?