How are geographic restrictions affecting you?

[shanghaichica]

When I was using my iPhone it was dreadful. It got to the point where most of the books I wanted to buy were not available in my region. Even books that I had bought months before were becoming unavailable. In the end I gave up on buying ebooks because I couldn't buy any of the books I wanted, without trying to hide my country of residence/ fake a US billing address/ remove DRM/ do conversions.

Anyway earlier this year I bought a Sony e-reader and so far I've not had any problems buying books I want as long as they are available in ebook format.

[neilmarr]

It's a crying shame that otherwise honest folks are forced to tell fibs and even bend or break laws in the attempt to make legitimate buys and use their purchases as they like -- false addresses, strpping DRM, hitting the darknet etc.

I won't do this; not because I feel it morally wrong by any means, just because I vote with my credit card and protest against unfair practices by simply saying 'no thanks'. And there is little I so desperately want or need that's worth the kind of messing around often necessary to buy it.

Cheers. Neil

[geertm]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

How do you buy from B&N?

Register your B&N account with a USA shipping and billing address. You can use any valid USA address, the billing address is not verified with your credit card company.
(If you want to buy a Nook use an USA mail forwarding address from companies like Borderlinx or USunlocked).

When you are buying books use a VPN like Hotspot Shield (free) or AlwaysVPN ($8.50) to have an USA IP-address.

There is no IP-address check on downloading books, just when buying them.
So after the books are bought you can use the Wifi connection of the Nook to download them (check for new B&N content).

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

It's a crying shame that otherwise honest folks are forced to tell fibs and even bend or break laws in the attempt to make legitimate buys and use their purchases as they like -- false addresses, strpping DRM, hitting the darknet etc.

I won't do this; not because I feel it morally wrong by any means, just because I vote with my credit card and protest against unfair practices by simply saying 'no thanks'. And there is little I so desperately want or need that's worth the kind of messing around often necessary to buy it.

Cheers. Neil

I can see your point. Unfortunately that isn't working. Your message won't get across and you are the one losing out. It just lowers ebook sales figures (publishers can fool themselves into thinking "nobody buys ebooks, anyway!") and I don't get to read what I want. Considering how much I would have to pay to have the physical books shipped to me I rather bite the bullet and use the workarounds.

[murraypaul]

It has affected me to the point that I'd use a store with weak georestriction checking (Amazon) rather than one with strong checking (B&N).
Other than that, any checking can be worked around, so it doesn't stop access to the books.

[amoroso]

Are geographic restrictions affecting me? Absolutely, and I'm mad about it.

As an example, Borders sells ePub ebooks I am interested in, compatible with my Cybook Opus and with better prices than Amazon. But I am in Italy, and they sell only to US.

I deal with it by neither doing business with those publishers and bookshops, nor turning to the darknet -- and hoping that they horribly crash and burn soon.

[AnemicOak]

What would be a realistic solution to geo restrictions do you guys think? I mean one that would work for pubs/authors/agents so that anyone who wants to could purchase the books they want.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

What would be a realistic solution to geo restrictions do you guys think? I mean one that would work for pubs/authors/agents so that anyone who wants to could purchase the books they want.

It requires a change to contracts, so that they would be for the right to publish the X language version of the book anywhere, rather than the right to publish the X language version of the book in Y country.
Georestrictions aren't a technical issue, but a contractual one.

[GeoffC]

Geographic Restriction (GR rrrrrr!) is losing etailers and epublishers money. All they need to do is see sense and recognise the financial implications of what they are doing. Luckily there are sufficient books available, for me, that it does not worry me overly much.

Hopefully they will soon realise the implications and don't damage what is (for many) a nascent business.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

It requires a change to contracts, so that they would be for the right to publish the X language version of the book anywhere, rather than the right to publish the X language version of the book in Y country.
Georestrictions aren't a technical issue, but a contractual one.

Yes, I know it's contractual but I'm wondering how they'll fix it (do they want to 'fix' it?). Authors/Agents want to be able to sell their rights to individual markets. Those individual markets/publishers in return require that they get ebook rights along with print especially with the way ebooks are growing. Penguin UK's head has said they aren't buying pbook rights unless ebook rights are included so how can we get to the point where there are global rights? Baen does it by purchasing non-exclusive rights, but I don't see the biggies going along with that.

Will contracts change or will retailers have to come up with some sort of system where they pay a rights holder based on where the purchaser is buying from and if so how would they implement it.



IMO Geo Restrictions are a much bigger contributing factor to piracy/file sharing than DRM is.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

What would be a realistic solution to geo restrictions do you guys think?

Do away with them? The author just has to sign over worldwide rights, done. Why is this even an issue with ebooks? I am in Europe, Amazon will happily sell and ship me books intended for the North American market, why can't it do the same for ebooks?

[ficbot]

I think ebooks need to be their own 'region.' So you would have print North American rights, print European rights, print whatever else rights etc. and 'ebook rights.' Splitting ebook rights up geographically makes no logical sense at all. What if you are an English speaker living in, say, Korea? Is a Korean publisher going to buy English ebook rights? No. So who do they think you will buy from? Nobody? How does THAT benefit authors and publishers? Ebooks need to be a right, or region, independent of whatever else is going on. It could be that the first publisher will ask for right of refusal. So a UK author may sell the ebook rights to Penguin UK and an American author might sell to Penguin US.

[neilmarr]

***Unfortunately that isn't working. Your message won't get across***

The most loaded message anyone can send is a deafening silence, Hans. And if more folks would simply to refuse to buy under unfair conditions, things would eventually have to change.

Do remember that by buying products after jumping through hoops and then having to work to adjust them to your needs, you are paying for something basically imperfect.

That you buy anyway sends the message to publishers and stores that some folks will pay their wages even if the seller is not doing his job properly and fairly.

Best wishes. Neil

[alecE]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I think ebooks need to be their own 'region.' So you would have print North American rights, print European rights, print whatever else rights etc. and 'ebook rights.' Splitting ebook rights up geographically makes no logical sense at all.

I think this hits the nail on the head - as I understand it, the point of sale is deemed to be the vendor's location for pbooks but is the buyer's location for ebooks. Declaring the internet to be another region separate from the pbook regions could help enormously.

[GeoffC]

geographically restricted and logic and sense !