Buying Amazon.com books from the UK.

[JoHunt]

Originally Posted by Ian.M

The issue here is distribution rights. If the publisher/author have withheld the non N.A. ebook rights, Amazon *MUST* make a reasonable attempt to prevent sales outside N.A.
If they detect that you have made such an out-of-area purchase, as you have tried to make them breach their contract with the publisher/author, your further custom may cost them more than it earns so you and/or your devices may get blacklisted.

Are you saying that Amazon should block me from buying a book on my Kindle if I'm travelling out of the US

[KunoK]

Originally Posted by joehunt

Are you saying that Amazon should block me from buying a book on my Kindle if I'm travelling out of the US

That was one of the reasons, why I was surprised that they wrote me that email. Maybe I was in the US, whenever I purchased an e-book. Another reason is, that I know people have been doing it for years.

I know, this has been a problem with e-books for years. I can buy as many paperbacks as I want and have them sent and delivered to my door, but I can't buy all the e-books I want, and those I can buy, I have to pay more for, than a person living in another country.

There may be explanations like the place of purchase is at my home when I buy an e-book, and at the bookstore when I buy a paperback. But to my mind, that is technicalities made up by lawyers or lawmakers who spend too much time creating problems for other people.

[JoHunt]

Originally Posted by KunoK

I know, this has been a problem with e-books for years. I can buy as many paperbacks as I want and have them sent and delivered to my door, but I can't buy all the e-books I want, and those I can buy, I have to pay more for, than a person living in another country.

Unfortunately with ebooks, you are only buying a license to read the book (unlike an outright purchase of paperbacks). Publishers/authors buy/sell rights to distribute these "licenses" in different parts of the world, making it a bit of a mish mash where you can and can't buy certain ebooks.

Just use gift cards instead of credit cards and you'll be OK

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by joehunt

Unfortunately with ebooks, you are only buying a license to read the book (unlike an outright purchase of paperbacks). Publishers/authors buy/sell rights to distribute these "licenses" in different parts of the world, making it a bit of a mish mash where you can and can't buy certain ebooks.

That's not quite right. Geographic restrictions apply equally to ebooks and traditional books. It's just that it has never been worth the effort of enforcing the restrictions for paper books. It's impractical for a bookstore to check the residency of its customers. And the number of books sold cross-border by on-line vendors has been relatively small, compared to the total volume of sales. But that's not the case with ebooks, which is why the publishers try to enforce the restrictions.

This has got nothing to do with the idea of purchasing a licence to read a book. Rather, the geographic restriction is part of the contract between publisher and author - and is designed partly to protect the author's interests.

I'm not defending the geographic restrictions. I dislike them as much as most other other people. But it does help to understand the reasons they exist. It is certainly not the case - as Kunok posted above - that they are "technicalities made up by lawyers or lawmakers who spend too much time creating problems for other people."

Mike

[KunoK]

Hi Mike
When you say that geographic restrictions apply equally to ebooks and traditional books, is this something you know? I believe from earlier threads on MR, that it is not so. If I travel to London, I can go into a bookstore and buy any printed book they have. As far as I know, I am not sure but almost so, I can also order order a book from a London bookstore from back home, and have the friendly postman deliver it to my door in Denmark. I don't believe any geographic restrictions apply. It doesn't matter if a danish publisher holds the rights to sell a danish translation in Denmark, since I ordered it in London.
Please explain how it protects the author of a book, to prevent me from buying a copy of her book in an english bookstore, while allowing me to buy a danish translation of the book. It sounds more like battle between publishers.
In an earlier thread, I have read that when I buy a printed book from Denmark in an english bookshop, the point of the sale is in England. When I buy an ebook, the point of the sale is at my computer.
finallly the thing about "technicalities made up by lawyers or lawmakers who spend too much time creating problems for other people.", I put a "To my mind" in front of it, to indicate that it is an opinion, not a fact.

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by KunoK

When you say that geographic restrictions apply equally to ebooks and traditional books, is this something you know?

You made some good points, Kunok. Let me try to answer them.

Geographic restrictions do apply to traditional books, and have done so for many years - long before ebooks were conceived. My understanding is that they were introduced by British publishers before World War II. Typically, the publisher would purchase "British and Empire rights". In practice, that meant that they could distribute the book anywhere in the English-speaking world, other than than the United States.

That was to the author's benefit, because in those days British publishers didn't have the infrastructure to distribute in the US. So the author was free to negotiate a separate deal with an American publisher. (In practice, the larger British publishers would often sell the US rights on the author's behalf, typically for a lump sum which was shared between author and publisher.)

Naturally, American publishers reciprocated, and purchased US rights from their authors, leaving the authors - or the agents - free to negotiate other rights elsewhere.

Nowadays, the biggest publishers are no longer British or American, but are global conglomerates. So the practice is less important than it was. But it does survive. (It enabled a tiny Scottish publisher to purchase the British rights to two books by an American politician named Barack Obama in 2009.) No doubt it will die out completely before long - or might even become illegal.

Originally Posted by KunoK

If I travel to London, I can go into a bookstore and buy any printed book they have. As far as I know, I am not sure but almost so, I can also order order a book from a London bookstore from back home, and have the friendly postman deliver it to my door in Denmark. I don't believe any geographic restrictions apply. It doesn't matter if a danish publisher holds the rights to sell a danish translation in Denmark, since I ordered it in London.

Clearly, the restrictions do not apply to in the case of a traveller buying a book in another country. The book is still being sold in the country where the rights are held. In any case, it would be impractical to enforce them in those circumstances. As I understand it, the restriction does apply in your "friendly postman" case, but is not in practice enforced. Again, there is no practical way in which it could be done, and it would not be worthwhile trying to do so. But with the growth in ebooks, and the fact that the technology allows them to be delivered to any country in the world, there is an incentive on the publisher to try to enforce it.

Originally Posted by KunoK

Please explain how it protects the author of a book, to prevent me from buying a copy of her book in an english bookstore, while allowing me to buy a danish translation of the book.

This has got nothing to do with translations. An author is free to sell the rights to translate a book into a particular language, regardless of any geographic restrictions on the original. When the author sells such rights, he typically receives a lump sum, rather than a royalty payment. If there is a demand for a Danish translation of the book, the author will benefit from that.

Originally Posted by KunoK

finallly the thing about "technicalities made up by lawyers or lawmakers who spend too much time creating problems for other people.", I put a "To my mind" in front of it, to indicate that it is an opinion, not a fact.

Yes, of course it is your opinion. The reason for my negative comment was ... well, just think about it. Lawyers might or might not spend time thinking up technicalities to "create problems for other people". But is likely that the likes of Macmillan and Random House and Penguin would actually pay their lawyers to do so? Why would they do that? Publishers and authors have the same goal: to make as much money as possible from their work. How does creating problems for other people help them achieve that goal?

I'm sorry this is such a long post. I hope I have answered your points. But I do stress: I am not defending geographic restrictions on ebooks. I am simply trying to explain the background to them.

Mike

[Mike L]

May I be permitted a follow-up comment.

I just found the publishing contracts for three books that I wrote back in the 1980s. All three were published by British publishers.

In each case, the contract gave the publisher "British, Irish and Commonwealth" rights (Commonwealth is what we used to call Empire). But the publisher had the right to sell "subsidiary rights" on the author's behalf. These subsidiary rights included rights to publish the book in "foreign" (non-Commonwealth) countries, as well as translation, adaptation, serialisation, and other similar rights. If the publisher obtained a lump sump for any of these rights, the amount would be split 40-60 with the author.

(In my previous post, I said that the author was free to negotiate foreign rights. That's incorrect. It is the publisher that has that right, not the author.)

My point is that geographic restrictions were definitely in place back then. They were not invented specifically for ebooks, as others in this thread have suggested.

I also own many paper books which show a price in British, Australian, New Zealand and South African money, with a note saying that the book is not for sale in the USA. In many cases, there are probably separate US editions of the same books - which are presumably not for sale outside the USA. Another example of geographic restrictions for traditional books.

Mike

[mattst]

Originally Posted by Mike L

I also own many paper books which show a price in British, Australian, New Zealand and South African money, with a note saying that the book is not for sale in the USA. In many cases, there are probably separate US editions of the same books - which are presumably not for sale outside the USA. Another example of geographic restrictions for traditional books.

Thanks for your interesting posts on this Mike.

I too have noticed the above on probably hundreds of books published in the UK.

I remember buying some paper books, which were unavailable in the UK, from the US Amazon store and having them shipped to me in the UK. Do you think Amazon have dual standards when it comes to rights? They are strict about buying from abroad with digital rights but lax when it comes to paper books. I suppose with the former they have huge amounts of money at stake and a nervous publishing industry, while the latter has not been enforced over such a long time that the publishers are confortable with it. Also shipping a paper book abroad adds a lot to the cost (probably in many cases not far off doubling the overall cost), so there is no chance that it would be cheaper to buy the paper book from abroad than in your own country. With digital sales however they need to prevent savvy buyers from taking advantage of cheaper ebooks abroad. For example The Lord of the Rings costs £12.72 in Amazon's UK Kindle store, but in Amazon's India Kindle store the same edition costs only R376.00 (rupees) which is just £3.78 - that's 3.4 times cheaper. I wonder if there is another thread "Buying Amazon.in books from the UK"...

[Mike L]

Mattst,

You might well be right. But I'm not sure if publishers are lax about sending physical books abroad simply because they have always tolerated it. The point is that the author gives the publisher the right to publish the book in a given territory. Selling an individual copy is not the same as publishing it. The book has already been published at that point. At least, that's how I would interpret it.

But clearly that same principle is not applied to ebooks - perhaps for the reasons you mentioned.

Mike

[mattst]

Originally Posted by Mike L

Selling an individual copy is not the same as publishing it. The book has already been published at that point.

Yes indeed, but I suspect it is rather more complicated than that otherwise someone could... Buy the publishing rights for a book in India. Print 10,000 copies in India, all with the Indian publishing, edition, and copyright details printed in them. Ship the 10,000 books to the UK. Market them in the UK for one third of the UK recommended retail price, but sell them on a website physically located in India. The book would be published and printed in India, the point of sale would also be in India, but the book would arrive quickly because they've already been shipped to the UK.

I can't see us getting any further without input from a publishing industry lawyer.

Anyway I'm not worried by the cost of books, nor do I wish to get cheaper books by buying from abroad (the end of my previous post was purely a joke). The only reason I started this thread was because I wanted to read some ebooks which weren't available in the UK and I won't be buying from abroad again except for that reason.