Understanding agency prices and geo restrictions

[Shaggy]

There's nothing really special about any of this though. The fact that the internet gives you a global marketplace and you can buy goods/products from other countries happens every day. Taxes, pricing, currency, etc... problems already seem to be solved relatively well when you're buying anything else on the internet.

For some reason, Publishers have decided to further complicate this with geo restrictions. Most of the arguments above don't make much sense when you figure that you can already buy "insert any other digital/physical product" on the internet, from another country. What's so special about an eBook that requires the addition of geo restrictions?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by blogbook

Personally I think it would be easier to change the legal definition of "point of sale" for ebooks than to renegotiate existing contracts or trying to restructure the whole publishing industry.

AFAIK, there is no legal definition of "point of sale" for digital content; ebookstores are agreeing to publishers' limitations based on contracts, not legalities.

If the location of a digital sale has been established by law, I'd be happy to see references. (Which law? What nations have agreed to it?)

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by blogbook

But that is exactly my point. If point of sale would be at the vendor's (like pbooks) you don't need international rights to sell and transfer them online and all existing contracts stay valid.

...and unfortunately, that is not how things work. In most locations when I mail-order a physical object, the point of sale is still my residence, not the location of the retailer.

Let's say that somehow you get every nation in the world to change the point of sale to the retailer's location. The next day, Belize announces they will drop online sales taxes to 1.0%; within a few weeks major etailers relocate their businesses to Belize, and the other 194 nations in the world lose a ton of sales tax revenue. So where is the incentive to make this change...?

Not to mention that the various publishers and subsidiaries will also perceive this as a massive loss of revenues in favor of someone else -- or an opportunity to exploit contracts to their advantage. For example, let's say the French subsidiary of Random House has a lower royalty rate with an author than the UK subsidiary; so RH decides the French subsidiary will get the "international rights" -- and the author gets screwed.

Originally Posted by blogbook

Buying ebooks across borders is not about annoying the local publishers and in most cases not even about saving money. It is about availability.

Yup, that's exactly what I said. And as availability improves, people will care less and less about regional restrictions.

Originally Posted by blogbook

....I am quite sure most selling and distribution software could handle this. And if several shops decide they do not want the hassle others will fill in.

I concur, but again a) this is only one issue among many and b) it won't be resolved overnight.

Originally Posted by blogbook

Personally I think it would be easier to change the legal definition of "point of sale" for ebooks than to renegotiate existing contracts or trying to restructure the whole publishing industry.

No, it really won't. The marketplace will sort out the availability issues long before you could possibly convince any nation to change its sales tax laws.

I mean, really. Have you ever read some of these laws? The "Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement" is 181 pages. It has taken states 10 years to accept it, and it's still not accepted by 6 US states. And that's an attempt to make a "simpler" sales tax setup -- where the location of the customer is what determines the payment of a sales tax.

Getting every nation, let alone every municipality in those states, to do a 180º turn and all get on the same page in a short time span is pure fantasy. It's not happening.

Fortunately, the availability issues will eventually get resolved as ebook sales become a bigger part of the market.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

There's nothing really special about any of this though. The fact that the internet gives you a global marketplace and you can buy goods/products from other countries happens every day. Taxes, pricing, currency, etc... problems already seem to be solved relatively well when you're buying anything else on the internet.

For some reason, Publishers have decided to further complicate this with geo restrictions. Most of the arguments above don't make much sense when you figure that you can already buy "insert any other digital/physical product" on the internet, from another country. What's so special about an eBook that requires the addition of geo restrictions?

Actually, some music purchases get blocked in the same way, or video. A lot less of either is available to buy here, for example.

[karenr_nz]

All of the points everyone has raised are valid. Unfortunately, everyone seems to have missed the point of my original post (or maybe it got lost in my waffling).

The point is that, with electronic products, the vendor (be it bookseller, music retailer etc) usually does not own the product that they are retailing, thus they are effectively acting as the agent for the publisher (recording label, etc). This makes selling electronic a very different situation to selling a physical product where the vendor actually owns the product and can therefore set the price as they wish and sell to whomever they like.