Geographic restrictions - a different perspective

[CommonReader]

Well, I hope that the EU can force the market to be open at least within the EU. I recall when the car industry also tried to prevent customers from buying their cars wherever they liked in the EU. In the end the car industry had to back down and open the markets despite the fact that the car industry plays in a completely different league than the publishing industry when it comes down to economic importance and lobbying power.

[hidari]

I think Macmillan is originally a British Company....

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Prior to 1976, the US copyright was 28 years, plus the option of renewal for another 28 years, after it was life plus 50 which was done to conform to the Berne Convention. Most of the major US publishers pre-date that by quite a few years, Random House started in 1927, for example, MacMillan was started in 1843, Harper started in 1833. So the current publishing model predates the changes to the copyright laws by quite a long time and dates back to a time where it literally wasn't possible for the same publisher to publish books world wide.

[howyoudoin]

Originally Posted by Krystl

The service is PROVIDING the book/good. the GOOD is the book itself. Unfortunately, the law has not caught up to the digital age. .

Why isn't providing a physical book not a service then?

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

Why isn't providing a physical book not a service then?

You're making it sound too simple! It's so difficult to understand that we, the average human, simply can't understand it. Only them (the lawmakers) really know how it works, and we better stay out of it, as we simply are too stupid to make head or tails from it...

[howyoudoin]

Well, I would simply like to know if there's any reasoning behind those laws. The law was never meant to be 'too difficult to understand'. There are just unsatisfactory explanations and bad teachers.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

Well, I would simply like to know if there's any reasoning behind those laws. The law was never meant to be 'too difficult to understand'. There are just unsatisfactory explanations and bad teachers.

Naturally, there's a reason. It's simply too difficult to explain

Or maybe the lawmakers simply don't understand it, that's the other option













Personally, I'd go for the second option...

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I understand how authors might say to themselves 'why shouldn't I get more money for the UK rights' for instance, but where it breaks down for me is who holds the ebook rights for the American living in China, for instance? In their rush to protect one hypothetical right over another, they are leaving money on the table from willing, paying customers who have no store which will sell to them.

Exactly! I can understand splitting up the market for, say, the different English-speaking areas, as I doubt that e.g. a UK publisher picking up an American book would only want print rights and let the American publisher have the ebook rights for the UK market as well.

But in the current day and age, there is a not insignificant number of people living in non-English-speaking countries who would prefer to read English books in the original language. Local publishers in these countries will never want to buy the rights for the English versions in those markets - at best, they'll want to buy the translation rights (but the people who would want to read the book in English may not want to or be able to read the translated version even if that happens).

Separately, the markets may not be huge, but add them up and the author who doesn't give anyone the international (any territories outside the usual English language markets) rights for the ebook, and the publisher who doesn't want those rights (or doesn't want to exercise them even if they have them), are just voluntarily excluding a large number of potential customers.

And honestly, while I don't condone piracy (I've opted to pretend to be American in those cases where I really want a certain book), I don't think those authors and publishers should complain about lost sales in that particular case. One can argue whether piracy is justifiable or not, but if the author and/or publisher refuses to sell, then if the reader gets a copy by other means, it can't really be a lost sale.

(It's not always the author: I've e-mailed some authors about the geo-restrictions for their books which are available for US customers; at least in one case, I got a reply from both the author and her agent, who both told me that they don't know what the issue is and that the publisher has international ebook rights. I assume the publisher has simply chosen not to exercise that right, then.)

[Blue Tyson]

That's always a weird one, that last case. Wouldn't you put that in your contract?

I sell you international rights. If you fail to publish it in all these places, breach of contract.

There's an anthology I asked about where they took a YEAR AND HALF to make it available.

Contract should also have financial penalties in that case. ;-)

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

That's always a weird one, that last case. Wouldn't you put that in your contract?

I sell you international rights. If you fail to publish it in all these places, breach of contract.

Only if the contract requires publication. Which they don't. Ever. No publisher in their right mind would sign a contract that did, and any publisher insane enough to do so wouldn't last long.

Welcome to grown up land.

[howyoudoin]

Yeah, writers aren't as legally literate as agents and publishers. Agents, while they represent the writers, still only make good money if they push contracts through. It's in their interests to compromise in favour of the publishers to that end.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by howyoudoin

Yeah, writers aren't as legally literate as agents and publishers. Agents, while they represent the writers, still only make good money if they push contracts through. It's in their interests to compromise in favour of the publishers to that end.

Only if they don't drive away clients. Agents dont' sign contracts, after all. Authors do.

[Kali Yuga]

In defense of geo restrictions

The foundations of the complaints against geo restrictions are:

"Those guys over there can buy (e)books that we can't"
and
"Those guys over there can buy (e)books cheaper than we can"

Now, I will leave it to you to determine if this is a legitimate set of complaints. However, for my part it is clearly not a principled objection, rather one based on convenience and a demand for price parity (regardless of any local conditions).

For instance, as the OP tried to express: Geo restrictions basically come from the publishers' contracts with the authors. Few of those who complain consider, let alone try to figure out, what the author is entitled to, or how poorly it would be received if the publishers and/or retailers openly violated the contracts.

Similarly, the consequences of relocating the point of sale for Internet commerce to the retailer's location (as opposed to the buyer's location) is seldom explored -- and in at least some cases, is likely to have negative consequences. For example, under that schema, the nation you reside in will almost certainly lose sales tax / VAT revenues on a large chunk of sales. Your local retailers will suffer, because either they will lose business or will have to operate on razor-thin margins in order to compete with retailers around the world. Retailers would quickly migrate their sales locations to whatever nation(s) are willing to eschew taxes in exchange for the privilege of hosting a few server farms.

Also, if you're buying internationally and the price is based on the seller's nation, the prices you pay will change daily along with currency conversion rates -- and it's entirely possible that the price of a book could increase significantly in a short period of time, and the foreign retailer is not inclined to change its prices on your behalf.

For example: At the moment, the Australian and American dollar are close to equal. However, the AUD exchange rate was once closer to 1.9 AUD per USD, and could easily return to such figures. As a result, if we got rid of any tariffs, VAT or additional fees and allowed Australians free access to US ebook retailers: an ebook that costs USD $10 could cost AUD $10 today, AUD $12 next year, AUD $15 the following year and AUD $19 six months later. This is hardly a setup that can indefinitely guarantee price parity.

Meanwhile, there are actual advantages to everyone to allocating rights to different local publishers. The local publishers will know the local market, the local media, the local taxes, and will have a greater incentive to translate and sell works. An American company is not going to have a big incentive to translate a work into 50 languages and hire employees in 70 different nations; it's just inefficient. Just because you can sell an English version of a book from a single server in Oregon doesn't mean that is the best approach.

And, of course, it's a setup that respects the existing contracts between publishers and authors.

In other words, there is no simple and painless fix.


Fortunately, though, there is a fix, at least for the first problem: Time.

As ebook markets pick up speed, local publishers will have greater incentives to put out more and more titles. Thus, eventually the "availability" problem will be mostly relieved.

I don't think there will be true price parity any time soon. However, none of the suggestions by irate punters would result in permanent price parity anyway. Thus, "let us buy American goods!" rather than develop better prices and services in a local market is, at best, a chimera that is only shiny for as long as the USD is weak...

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

In defense of geo restrictions

The foundations of the complaints against geo restrictions are:

"Those guys over there can buy (e)books that we can't"
and
"Those guys over there can buy (e)books cheaper than we can"

No, I do not think that is true. The complaints are based on the fact tha you can buy the paper book from the publisher but you cannot buy the ebook from the same publisher.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by tompe

No, I do not think that is true. The complaints are based on the fact tha you can buy the paper book from the publisher but you cannot buy the ebook from the same publisher.

Technically, it is against the publishers' contracts to sell a book out of their agreed geo area but practically being near unenforceable and almost completely ignored... unfortunately for eBooks, it is relatively straightforward to trace buying point and block automatically...

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

In defense of geo restrictions


As ebook markets pick up speed, local publishers will have greater incentives to put out more and more titles. Thus, eventually the "availability" problem will be mostly relieved.

It hasn't here for music or movies, so why do you think it will happen in this more restricted and far less popular media? e.g. Quickflix would be 1/4 the size of Netflix titlewise, etc.