Books you would love to buy but can't....

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by latepaul

That's all true but I was talking about the inverse - in light of Timboli's point -
how would you create rules that oppose geo restrictions? I can't see how you could do that without international agreement.

I suppose some country could go it alone and declare that once a work is released somewhere in the world it must be made available there within a reasonable time. But that's a pretty aggressive stance. It wouldn't surprise me if it's effectively outlawed by current agreements.

Either way, whether it's go-it-alone or new internationally agreed rules, I think it would take a lot of political will to implement this. And the cases where works are unavailable probably aren't common enough to create the support the politicians would need, when there's a lot of vested interest in the current system.

Ah, I understand now. Yes, that would be very unlikely.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Yea, I don't know why{. . . }

My main point is that geo restrictions is a contract issue tied to business models rather than something that is tied to treaty or copyright law.

There are copyright law aspects.

Thus some books are copyright free in the UK but not in the US and others copyright free in the UK but not in the US. Life+50 and Life+70 countries are another obvious case.

The author or other rights holder is likely to oppose sales they don't get paid for.

Some authors do not wish to allow further publication. This is legal if they can retrieve the rights whether the reason is literary or business or both.

[Little.Egret]

My attention has been drawn to H M Hoover reprints in pbook and ebook by a oddly named small press
Society for Preservation and Dissemination of Books We Love to Read (22 Aug. 2017)

For example Children of Morrow
This Time of Darkness

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

My attention has been drawn to H M Hoover reprints in pbook and ebook by a oddly named small press
Society for Preservation and Dissemination of Books We Love to Read (22 Aug. 2017)

For example Children of Morrow
This Time of Darkness

Why can you not buy these?

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why can you not buy these?

I can, but I wish to notify success,

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by DNSB

How many publishers have a world wide presence?

I can't say whether every country is covered, but: Hatchette, Holtzbrinck/Macmillan, Penguin/Random House, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster are all multinational companies that have publishing subsidiaries throughout English speaking countries and Europe, and according to Wikipedia, all have global distribution. It's certainly possible that they keep the subsidiaries separate for accounting reasons, for example, to keep income within national boundaries for tax purposes. I don't know whether this also affects contracts with authors.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

There are copyright law aspects.

Thus some books are copyright free in the UK but not in the US and others copyright free in the UK but not in the US. Life+50 and Life+70 countries are another obvious case.

The author or other rights holder is likely to oppose sales they don't get paid for.

Some authors do not wish to allow further publication. This is legal if they can retrieve the rights whether the reason is literary or business or both.

You certainly have a point. I don't think that anyone is arguing than the copyright holder doesn't have the legal right to withhold a book from further publication for the term of the copyright, but I do think it's fair to say that doing so is contrary to the purpose of copyright, at least in the US.

[JSWolf]

A good example of eBooks not available in the US is some of the Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler. Some are available and some are not. They are available in the UK. I really don't see any reason for them not to be available in the US. It makes people who want to read these eBook do one of two things. Either jump the border to bypass georestrictions or go search the net to try to find these to download.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

A good example of eBooks not available in the US is some of the Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler. Some are available and some are not. They are available in the UK. I really don't see any reason for them not to be available in the US. It makes people who want to read these eBook do one of two things. Either jump the border to bypass georestrictions or go search the net to try to find these to download.

Exactly. It is like sitting in a glass house throwing bricks. As I often repeat, obtaining a pirate copy of a book is trivial. It is certainly not beyond most of us here. Yet so few people choose to do so that there is a thriving and growing legitimate ebook market.

Unfortunately it seems that some in the publishing industry fail to understand the reality of their market.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by darryl

Exactly. It is like sitting in a glass house throwing bricks. As I often repeat, obtaining a pirate copy of a book is trivial. It is certainly not beyond most of us here. Yet so few people choose to do so that there is a thriving and growing legitimate ebook market.

While pirating an ebook might save me money in the short run, it does not encourage an author to continue writing which is more important to me. To quote one local would-be author, for the time he spent writing the book and the amount he received, he would have done better spending his time outside a mall entrance playing his guitar.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by DNSB

While pirating an ebook might save me money in the short run, it does not encourage an author to continue writing which is more important to me. To quote one local would-be author, for the time he spent writing the book and the amount he received, he would have done better spending his time outside a mall entrance playing his guitar.

It is for this and many other reasons that people prefer to buy through legitimate channels and pay even when they can easily get a pirate version for free. My point is that when customers become unhappy this option exists for them, and some are going to take it. So when a customer can't get a book because of geo-restrictions or is asked to pay through the neck for it, and they can get a pirate copy for free now, the temptation is there. Just to be clear, I am not advocating this. But if this was the nature of my business I would certainly be going out of my way to keep my customers happy.

[JSWolf]

What the publishers do not get is that given how easy it is to find pirated eBooks, not publishing is going to cause some piracy. Take my Clive Cussler example. I buy the first so many books available. Then I go to by the next book and it's unavailable. If I was unable to buy from the UK, I'd go looking elsewhere. Then I find out how easy it is to find the eBooks I'm looking for. So I think that was easy and free. So let's try again for this eBook. I find it. So why bother to pay when I can get for free?

I do think that if an eBook is not available in one country but is in another, then georestrictions should not matter. That way, the author gets paid, the publisher who published the eBook gets paid and the consumer has a legally purchased eBook.

I do think that the publishers have to take some responsibility for the eBook piracy.

[darryl]

@JSWolf. I sometimes think it is just sheer greed. I think the large publishers do in fact get how easy it is to find pirated ebooks. And it scares them beyond reason. Because they see every download of a pirate ebook as being a lost sale, and calculate their "losses" by applying full retail price to every download they estimate. They should be thinking aren't we lucky! Everyone could get our books for free and we'd have no business, but hardly any of them choose to! How can we keep it that way? Instead they sometimes seem to go out of their way to alienate their customers.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

@JSWolf. I sometimes think it is just sheer greed. I think the large publishers do in fact get how easy it is to find pirated ebooks. And it scares them beyond reason. Because they see every download of a pirate ebook as being a lost sale, and calculate their "losses" by applying full retail price to every download they estimate. They should be thinking aren't we lucky! Everyone could get our books for free and we'd have no business, but hardly any of them choose to! How can we keep it that way? Instead they sometimes seem to go out of their way to alienate their customers.

The Dirk Pitt series is one I've been trying to get. My understanding with that specific set of books is the issue isn't the publishers but Cussler. I seem to recall reading that he has had running battles with various publishers over the years.

[darryl]

@JSWolf @pwalker8. I suspect all Dirk Pitt ebooks are available in Australia and some other countries, probably including the UK. I checked one, Deep Six, which is not available as an ebook in the US. It is available for $A12.99 in Australia. Kobo India has it for $A7.08.

I really don't know whether the author or the publisher is to blame.