Poll on obstacles to ebook buying

[Katti's Cat]

Originally Posted by Jellby

More specifically, it's the other publishers. The situation is something like:

Publisher A has the rights to sell in the US, they do sell paper books and ebooks.
Publisher B has the rights to sell in Europe, they sell only paper books, as they are afraid of ebooks.

Now, publisher A would like to sell ebooks in Europe, of course, and people in Europe are willing to buy ebooks from publisher A, but publisher B will complain, fight and prevent this to happen, as only they have the rights to sell in Europe. So, if you can't buy ebooks from publisher A, publisher B is to blame

That's how I understand the publishing industry as well. Maybe it would be worthwhile to seperate the publishing rights - just because you can't get the eBook doesn't mean you would by the pBook. So different markets shouldn't interfer with the sale. Hmmm - I might be onto something. And now I will go back to sleep to finish this beautiful dream

[weatherwax]

DRM for me. Breaking DRM should be OK for personal use, e.g. to reformat books or having backup copies or converting to additional formats to read on other devices. But then I should not have to go through the hassle of doing something which is illegal anyway.

Lending an ebook may often be considered the same as giving someone a scanned or photocopied paper book, or is anybody actually removing the book from their device(s) when lending the book to a friend?

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Is it a criminal offence to "import" an ebook without paying VAT by fraudulently registering as a resident in the country of purchase?

I'm wondering if, in the eyes of the law, it's a worse crime to buy a book without paying VAT than to copy it off the darknets without paying anything.

This is indeed an issue highlighted in the UK legal opinion I have. It does not draw a conclusion, but it does warn of caselaw which could very easily lead at the very least to a tax bill.

(And it notes that the revenue authorities are often willing to chase what seems like trivial sums and to make examples of people, sigh.)

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Is it a criminal offence to "import" an ebook without paying VAT by fraudulently registering as a resident in the country of purchase?

I would think that would only be an issue if the vendor were set up to collect the VAT in the first place - most US stores aren't.

I'm wondering if, in the eyes of the law, it's a worse crime to buy a book without paying VAT than to copy it off the darknets without paying anything.

Well, keeping in mind that Al Capone was finally imprisoned for the pernicious crime of...tax evasion? Quite possibly...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by weatherwax

...

Lending an ebook may often be considered the same as giving someone a scanned or photocopied paper book, or is anybody actually removing the book from their device(s) when lending the book to a friend?

That is supposedly the way the new Adobe "Lending" on the Nook works. While the book is on loan, it can't be read by the Loaner.

[columbus]

Originally Posted by Jellby

More specifically, it's the other publishers. The situation is something like:

Publisher A has the rights to sell in the US, they do sell paper books and ebooks.
Publisher B has the rights to sell in Europe, they sell only paper books, as they are afraid of ebooks.

Now, publisher A would like to sell ebooks in Europe, of course, and people in Europe are willing to buy ebooks from publisher A, but publisher B will complain, fight and prevent this to happen, as only they have the rights to sell in Europe. So, if you can't buy ebooks from publisher A, publisher B is to blame

Exactly!!

[iwrite05]

EowynCarter,

Thank you for your post. I am somewhat computer literate - but not a great techie - so to speak. That being said have a Sony prs 300 received for Xmas. Downloaded an ebook from Barnes & Nobles only to find that it was DRM protected -- so my Sony ereader will not read it. Downloaded Caliber and it will not convert due to the DRM issue. I noticed that you said in your post that you said:

Book not published as e-book are on top of my list, followed by geo restrictions, then, bad editing / formating.

DRM are a mess, i only buy book because I can get rid of these.

Would you please give me step by step instructions on how to do this in order to be able to read "The Ebook That I have already purchased" and CANNOT READ!! I would greatly appreciate your feedback... thnx much.
Iwrite05

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by iwrite05

Would you please give me step by step instructions on how to do this in order to be able to read "The Ebook That I have already purchased" and CANNOT READ!! I would greatly appreciate your feedback... thnx much.
Iwrite05

I'm afraid that it's against MR site policy to either ask for, or to give, detailed instructions on DRM removal. Sorry.

[jamesbeat]

I really don't get the DRM/geo restrictions thing.

Downloading pirated books (and music and moves) is so simple that I really believe the publishers are shooting themselves in the foot.
Why would anyone in their right mind spend money to download a book that has DRM on it when they could download a non-DRM version for free?
What choice do people have but to download illegally when they are unable to do so legally due to geographic restrictions?

I pay for books, but only because I'd feel guilty about the writers if I didn't. The publishing companies aren't going to garner any sympathy or support from me because, like the majority of people, I resent DRM, and remove it from my books as soon as I get them.

DRM is a method that publishers use to steal from their customers. If you buy DRM books, you'll probably lose all of them at some point. Will you feel bad about illegally downloading after that?
Making your customers resent you is not a good way to discourage them from 'stealing' from you...

Maybe piracy wouldn't be as rife if books were available to download at a fair price and without restrictions. Better to sell 1000000 books for $4.99 than 100000 books for $14.99.
At what point do your potential customers become pirates? I expect that the higher the price goes, the more people will shrug their shoulders and launch bittorrent.

What the publishers don't realize, or more probably choose to ignore, is that the ONLY people who buy their books are the honest ones. Why punish or restrict them?

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by jamesbeat

Why would anyone in their right mind spend money to download a book that has DRM on it when they could download a non-DRM version for free?

Convenient access, well-formatted and proof-read content - and a fair price.

Alas, these things are all too rare with e-books, but experience with the music industry has shown that this model can work (OK, except for the DRM part!)

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Convenient access, well-formatted and proof-read content - and a fair price.

Those are reasons for downloading from MR, not for buying ebooks

Don't forget that geographic restrictions are demanded by the publishers that don't sell the ebook. If you cannot buy an ebook from publisher A, it's because publisher B does not want you to. You then go and download the ebook from the darknet, OK, publisher A has lost a sale, but publisher B has lost nothing, and is hoping that you will buy the paper book from them instead

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Don't forget that geographic restrictions are demanded by the publishers that don't sell the ebook. If you cannot buy an ebook from publisher A, it's because publisher B does not want you to.

Publisher B probably offers ebooks too, so I don't see your point...

[Clancy_s]

Originally Posted by rhadin

At my blog, I am conducting a poll about the most important obstacle to your purchasing ebooks. I invite MobileReaders to particpate. The poll is at Ebook Buying Obstacles: A Poll (I). The poll will last for 1 week; you can make only 1 selection and can only vote once. Your particpation is appreciated.

Someone else may have pointed it out already but I don't have the time to go through the thread:

you omitted what to me is the most common limitation - geographic restriction. Maybe you should retitle it"Ebook Buying Obstacles for Americans". #(

[Angst]

DRM/Device. About 40% of the books I want to buy are not available with a DRM edition that my reader can decipher. (And about 25% have a much higher price if the appropriate DRM format of the book is available for my device.)

[dmaul1114]

He did say he would have multiple polls later on looking at different issues.

But yeah, there really needs to be threads for different countries, because being American the geographic restrictions issue is a moot point. So a broad survey isn't really accurate, as people in different countries will have different concerns.