The morality of circumventing geographical restrictions only to buy cheaper ebooks

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I've just had this dilemma for the current Book Club book. It's Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. In both the US and the UK it's published by Random House.

At Kobo UK it's £6.49 and the 50% off coupon won't work.
At Kobo US it's $11.99 but the 50% coupon does work. Add in (say) Colorado taxes, and it's $6.45 net, which works out to £4.20.

So, what should I do?
The author is the same, the retailer is the same, the publisher is the same.
But I save £2.29 if I buy at the US store. In other words, buying from the UK store would be just over 50% more expensive.

Does anyone really think the author, retailer or publisher would think that it was just as wrong for me to pirate the ebook?

I don't see how buying a book from a legal retailer can be compared with pirating, regardless of whether you shop around or not. But that's just me. From an author standpoint, because I'm indie, my opinion is probably not the same as a trad publisher. I don't care where you buy my books, country, retailer, website, etc. I do care about pirating and no matter how many times people tell me, "But wait, it's visibility" I am still against it.

Now for trad: The US publisher gets nothing usually if you buy it in the UK so the US publisher cares. Does the publisher feel it is pirated? Probably not, but each country does try to keep you inside the bounds because they are more interested in their own profit, even if the company shares a parent company. Is it morally wrong? I have no idea. I have more important moral questions to worry about than whether or not shopping around is going to slight my record.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by xendula

Lucky for us that some still chose it. I imagine with a daytime job, new installments in a series would come out much more slowly.

We are lucky indeed.

Yes, I think they do come out more slowly, but on the other hand, co-workers can be quite inspiring to murder plots and, erm. Well, they can be quite inspiring.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

We are lucky indeed.

Yes, I think they do come out more slowly, but on the other hand, co-workers can be quite inspiring to murder plots and, erm. Well, they can be quite inspiring.

... Methinks I should check out your books

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by xendula

... Methinks I should check out your books

Was it something I said?

[taming]

Originally Posted by Istvan diVega

Quite frankly I feel that anybody who thinks there's any moral downside to this is stuck in a pre-internet, pre-globalisation world and needs to at least dip their toes in the current millennium asap.

However, the retailer also has Terms of Use that are very clear about providing accurate information about where you live for use with your account, including for billing /purchasing. The consequences can include being prevented from making additional purchases, and perhaps having your account closed. I don't know if that would include being prevented from downloading copies of previously purchased books. There is, one could argue, an issue with violating that agreement.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by taming

However, the retailer also has Terms of Use that are very clear about providing accurate information about where you live for use with your account, including for billing /purchasing. The consequences can include being prevented from making additional purchases, and perhaps having your account closed. I don't know if that would include being prevented from downloading copies of previously purchased books. There is, one could argue, an issue with violating that agreement.

And you are lying if you provide false information. And lying is usually a thing that is used as example when discussing moral and I actually think you should avoid lying as much as possible so I do not feel comfortable at all with providing false information.

[Istvan diVega]

There are times and situations when lying is perfectly moral and this, in my opinion, is one such.

Originally Posted by taming

However,......

My statement was made in regards to the moral implications, or indeed the absence of such, and nothing else.

[bearymore]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

It definitely has nothing to do with copyright infringement. It is a contract between the publisher and the ebook store and it is the store's responsibility to uphold it, not mine. we deal a lot with grey imports for physical goods --- which happen because an agent/supplier in one country is ripping local customers off and they are looking for better deals elsewhere. The only thing said agent/supplier can do is go to the manufacturer and complain. A publisher's or manufacturer's distribution system doesn't really concern me.

Precisely! In fact, Waterstones used to sell ebooks to U.S. customers, no questions asked. They only stopped when threatened with lawsuits/publisher boycotts. In a regretful e-mail they so informed their U.S. customers.

[bearymore]

Originally Posted by tompe

The store does not have a license to sell a copy of the book in the same way as a torrent uploader does not have a license to distribute a copy of the book to you. You as a customer or downloader know that in both cases. I can really not see any significant difference here.

Really? If I buy a gray market camera, the manufacturer may not honor the warranty, but won't report me for receiving stolen goods. If I buy a camera off the back of a truck, however, I'll go to jail. Are you implying that the same distinction should not apply for ebooks?

If you ask me laws such as the DMCA are trying to criminalize behavior which is perfectly legal in any other realm.

[Byrdie]

Had to vote "Other" on this one. Because I question the whole morality of imposing geographical restrictions -- or as I prefer to call it -- geographical discrimination -- in the first place. It is BS of this sort that leads people into piracy even though they are willing and able to pay but the vendors refuse to sell simply because of where they happen to live. We do not allow this in the real world; you can walk into any store to buy a book or movie, etc. and there will be no questions asked about where you're from. As long as you have the money and the purchase is legal (no sales of adult material to underage customers, for example) nobody cares if you're from Canada, the States or The Klingon Empire. Refusing legitimate customers based on such "logic" would soon put a bricks-and-mortar business out of business. Why do we let these e-companies get away with what no offline retailer can? It boggles the mind.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Byrdie

Had to vote "Other" on this one. Because I question the whole morality of imposing geographical restrictions -- or as I prefer to call it -- geographical discrimination -- in the first place.

Ditto - and even my government agrees.

[Byrdie]

Yep, it's all about protecting corporate profits, not author's rights. Whoever came up with such a scheme has the ethics of a Ferengi. And no, that is not a compliment.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by bearymore

If you ask me laws such as the DMCA are trying to criminalize behavior which is perfectly legal in any other realm.

Actually the DMCA tries to criminalize behavior which is perfectly legal in the same realm. Some is specifically allowed by other laws while other has been ruled legal by the courts. The latter is the most troublesome as new laws are allowed to override previous court judgments. The problem is that some of the judgments have been made on constitutional grounds-and new laws cannot override those judgments, only a constitutional amendment (or a higher court) can do that. So it's a quagmire.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by tompe

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?

The publisher in the US probably worked a lot more for the book than the publisher for my area! The local publisher didn't do anything but markup the book, at least in my case.

By torrenting they will never know about you and nobody makes any money, all you are doing is destroying the incentive for people and enriching yourself.

[Maverynthia]

Knowing what I know about Amazon and book pricing (basically it's artificially inflated and the author doesn't see the difference), I see nothing wrong with it. The reason it's so cheap in other countries is probably due to the fact they don't want to put up with our artificial pricing AND the fact their economy runs differently and/or they view books as less/more valuable and such.

It also depends on what people are used to paying for print books. Like a manga in Japan back a few years ago was like $4 a volume, ours was $10 at the time. Which then Japanese people would view a book normally at around a $4~$5 locally amped up to US standards of $14 (1350円) as ridiculous. Thus a local price might be $4~5 (I think like.. 390円?) would be more marketable than the $14 price.