How does geographical restriction help anyone?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by greenapple

Is there any party that benefit from not getting that ebook sold?

A lot of pirate sites gain income from advertising, which will be based on number of unique visitors, so any extra visitors will benefit them. Some of the uploaders also get affiliate payments or some other type of benefit every time their file is downloaded. Or if you paid for some IP masking service they would benefit from it. Or you signed up for some pay-per-download site/service, premium account at some dropbox type site ...

All I can see the publisher benefitting from it would be not being taken to court for breach of contract, assuming the writer or agent had any way of knowing about it. But I think it would be a pretty odd writer who would object to having a paying reader enough to do that. Unless they had no intention of ever writing another book and the one they did write wasn't selling well enough to live off it.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Also, on a fundamental level it doesn't make sense to treat paper and digital sales the same. It's common, unfortunately, for consumers to demand they be identical when it's to the consumer's advantage, and treated different when the differences are in the consumer's advantage....

Funnily enough it's the exact opposite now: Publishers treat them the same / highlight the differences as it fits their agenda. The worst of both worlds for the consumer, so to speak.

On a separate note, it isn't easy for a retailer to do business in 180 countries.

Well, you can probably start with two or three dozen. And if you want to go the low-maintenance route just make it clear to the customer that he's responsible for any taxes and duties. Oh, and you'd invoice in US dollars, no worries.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by asjogren

Geographical Restrictions send me to the darknet. NOTHING else does.

If they don't want to sell it to me....

Pretty much the sum of it.

Then naturally, they (the publishers), jump up and down and bemoan the rise of piracy but still continue on without making changes to the way they distribute ebooks.

Contracts with new authors and renegotiated contracts with older established authors could reflect region removal if they want to bring back those people and encourage buying ebooks.

It is really up to them how they approach the situation, but in the meantime more and more people taking up ebook reading will turn elsewhere to acquire their books.

I did read though that Hachette has signed up with Redgroup here. Amazing what opening up a competitor does to prices and availability (though that does remain to be seen)

The drawback is agency pricing....

[Blue Tyson]

Yeah, waiting for the youtube video of someone cutting up their book, scanning it, uploading it, then burning the paper.

[greenapple]

Another awful thing about ebook geographical restriction is that if enough ebooks are not available for some regions (eg, my country), then the ebook makers with ebook stores (eg Amazon with their Kindle, Sony, Borders with their Nook) won't supply their ebook reading devices to residences in these areas as well.

My country is basically barren when it comes to ebook readers. We have a huge Sony presence here, but they don't want to sell their Sony Readers here, primarily due to ebook restrictions.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Well, you can probably start with two or three dozen....

24 to 36 countries? Seriously? That's your idea of a modest international business...?

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

And if you want to go the low-maintenance route just make it clear to the customer that he's responsible for any taxes and duties. Oh, and you'd invoice in US dollars, no worries.

That's not even close to how it works. It's up to the retailer in almost all nations to collect sales tax and/or VAT.

You really think you can go to your local supermarket and tell them you'll send the sales tax in yourself?

Further, if you invoice in US currency, and your customer does not have a US credit card, then they get hit with fees for the currency exchange. If they return the ebook, they have to pay another exchange fee. I.e. your customers will either expect you to accept local currency, or you'll get an earful.

Like I said, none of this is impossible, but it definitely increases the cost of doing business for a retailer, even once the contractual issues are addressed. Even B&N isn't going after international customers, and it's virtually certain they'd get international access to the same titles as Amazon.

Unfortunately, I don't think you will see a lot of companies chasing those customers for quite some time.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Format C:

You can still buy the paperback from Amazon.
And that's funny....

Why would I want to buy something I don't want? I don't want paper. I want bits and bytes.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

That's not even close to how it works. It's up to the retailer in almost all nations to collect sales tax and/or VAT.

We cant expect Amazon to collect VAT in other countries when they aren't required to collect the tax in the US. By law I am responsible for making sure I remit the appropriate use tax on qualifying purchases.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

24 to 36 countries? Seriously? That's your idea of a modest international business...?

Yes, "modest" sounds about right. That would allow you to cover North America, quite a bit of Europe, a bit of Asia / Oceania ...

That's not even close to how it works. It's up to the retailer in almost all nations to collect sales tax and/or VAT.

For their local sales, yes, if applicable. But if I buy something from abroad, importing it on my own as it were, I'm responsible for any levies, taxes and duties (VAT is charged as a "import turnover tax" in the same amount). Believe me, I've been doing this for years (as a consumer).

You really think you can go to your local supermarket and tell them you'll send the sales tax in yourself?

A supermarket is a bad example, but yes, if you purchase goods for exporting them (there is a certain amount of paperwork involved, obviously) you can get your sales tax back. What I'm trying to say is this: as a seller you usually don't need to be overly concerned with the tax regime of a foreign country. It's somebody else's problem.

Originally Posted by Fbone

We cant expect Amazon to collect VAT in other countries when they aren't required to collect the tax in the US. By law I am responsible for making sure I remit the appropriate use tax on qualifying purchases.

Voilà.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Fbone

We cant expect Amazon to collect VAT in other countries when they aren't required to collect the tax in the US. By law I am responsible for making sure I remit the appropriate use tax on qualifying purchases.

Amazon UK collects VAT, I think that would cover the rest of the EU too. Ebay recently "moved" to Luxemburg so it could charge the lower rate there.

[rogue_librarian]

The story is different within the EU. "Large" sellers (exceeding 100k € in yearly sales) now must charge the buyer's country's sales tax ("destination principle"). This only applies to European vendors, though.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

As to the idea of indexing pricing based on regional cost of living, I'm not sure that's the case. As far as I can tell, books aren't a commodity that can be produced cheaply in one area for international consumption; i.e. you can't have a writer in Nigeria or China re-write a Stephen King book at a fraction of King's royalties and advance.

But the price is adapted to the market. New US books are usually cheaper than corresponding UK versions. New Swedish books are usually much more expensive than a new UK or US book and so on.