The Sword and Laser discussion
Geolocation Rage
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Todd
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Feb 09, 2012 03:13AM
I live in Australia and am very frustrated with Geo locked books. Does anybody know why this is. I use Kindle and Audible but sometimes the books aren't available electronically. Then eventually the book might become available. I want to pay for the content and support the authors but I'm not sure if there are any other options but waiting. Any ideas?
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Well publishers license rights from authors on a country by country basis, so if a publisher hasn't paid for the Australian rights the book can't be sold in Australia. I'm not entirely sure why it's ok to have the US paperback rights to a book and ship it to someone in Australia if they buy it online, but it's not okay to sell them the ebook, but presumably it some legal mumbo jumbo basis.I've dealt with this problem by only reading small press ebooks that are available unlocked and drm free from places like Weightless Books and Wizards Tower. Anything by a larger, lamer publisher I stick to physical copies.
I don't think there's any good alternative for audible, though infuriatingly books that aren't available on their UK site are available for me to buy in the iTunes store, but massively expensive and covered in drm, so I can't conveniently play them on my android.
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If they take our money, the vendor, the publisher, the author and the buyer all get what we want. Everyone wins.
Not taking our money leads some to find alternate illegal methods of obtaining the book, which makes no-one any money.
I don't condone getting books from illegal sources. I choose to either wait for it be available (if it is a book I really want) or find another book.
Publishers need to make worldwide deals before they release their books.
Tassie Dave wrote: "If they take our money, the vendor, the publisher, the author and the buyer all get what we want. Everyone wins."To play devil's advocate,
Oh look, Scalzi's explained it better
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/06/07...
The discussion on the Scalzi link wasn't bad as it applied to physical books, but didn't explain the situation with e-books at all.The representative from Tor in their comment said that contracts gave them exclusive rights in some territories and non-exclusive rights in the rest. That implies to me that it is an arbitrary decision by them as to whether to allow e-sales in any particular territory.
Phil wrote: "The discussion on the Scalzi link wasn't bad as it applied to physical books, but didn't explain the situation with e-books at all."
Exclusive rights to some territories, non-exclusive rights to some, and no rights in other English speaking territories.
But, right, it's more of a corollary.
If publishers started buying up global rights or even just global English language ebook rights the foreign rights market would collapse.
It makes sense for the whole industry to be wary of this, because it means either individual publishers will have to pay more upfront, or writers and agents will make less money upfront.
It's a problem publishing will have to solve, and there are publishers who do buy global rights already, but a broad sea change would probably be additionally opposed by National governments, because it would (might) hurt regional publishers and kill local jobs and because local activity or even importing generates tax revenue, whereas an EPub file coming in over to boarder generates nothing.
(This is just my extrapolation, based on some half assed research and a good-faith assumption that the industry is not staffed by actual morons. I prefer paperbacks anyway)
Yep - want Australian publishers and book stores put out of business just because some American mega corp has deep enough pockets to purchase the publishing rights to most top 10 books?
Stan wrote: "Yep - want Australian publishers and book stores put out of business just because some American mega corp has deep enough pockets to purchase the publishing rights to most top 10 books?"Artificial protection of markets through tariffs might work for some capital items like cars and machinery (in my opinion for a limited time), but it won't work for intellectual property that is easily transferrable by electronic means.
Look at what's happening with the TV and Video market in Australia. People are dying to follow what's been happening in the US market and move to streaming services to legitimise their viewing of shows that are unavailable at reasonable cost or unavailable at all. At the moment a lot of them are downloaded via BitTorrent and no-one is happy, in the same way that people downloaded music before iTunes.
Currently I subscribe to Netflix and use a VPN endpoint to run it on my BoxeeBox and PC. People in this thread are advocating a similar approach to bypass the geolocation limitations of Amazon et al.
The bookstores worldwide are under threat in the same way that the video stores were until their demise (and imminent demise of the 'record shop'. What they should be looking to do is like Glee Books in Sydney and others, which is to specialise in specialty markets that will always exist - mostly short run, expensive, quality printed books.
What Todd was complaining about is exactly my frustration. I want to be able to buy books on my Kindle at the same time and price they are available in the US and UK. But more than that, I also want to be able to buy foreign language books from France and Spain and Germany - at the moment that is prohibited absolutely.
It will come. All that is happening at the moment is that these obsolete rules and regulations are allowing a quasi-monopoly marketer to blame the publishers for them charging extortionate prices and forcing the purchase of paper instead of electronic books in some markets.
If authors sold their own works electronically and not use a publisher they could sell in an market they wanted to. I understand that not every author is in a postion to do so nor do all markets allow authors to sell their own works but it's a start. Amazon, B&N, iBooks, etc. makes it very easy for authors to post their own work they just have to do the leg work of creating accounts and uploading their files.
Kate wrote: "This is just my extrapolation, based on some half assed research and a good-faith assumption that the industry is not staffed by actual morons. I prefer paperbacks anyway"Thats a fairly large assumption.
Thanks for all the comments guys...to quote Mystery Men. "Rage Abating..."
I now what you mean, I live in Spain and have the same problem (or even worst because some titles don't come out here (in English) until they translated them to Spanish), and importing books is "illegal", and it's illegal to bypass the geolock. I registered my Kindle in USA, and I don't have to worry any more, if I ever get banned of Amazon for doing this... I'll start using thepiratebay to get my books. If they don't want my money, I won't fight to give it to them!
I'll be honest, I can kind of defend DRM when it comes to trying to minimize the likelihood that media is going to end up on a free download site, but I cannot possibly defend geo locking on e-purchases. Frankly when I saw that I could limit my sales based on region my first thought was "Why in the name of Jos Whedon would I even ~think~ about limiting my reach?!?"I hope you're all right and this is just a matter of the old fart lawyers moving on and going from "get out of my office" to "get off my lawn."
Rob wrote: "I'll be honest, I can kind of defend DRM when it comes to trying to minimize the likelihood that media is going to end up on a free download site, but I cannot possibly defend geo locking on e-purc..."DRM doesn't minimize the risk of being pirate... On my opinion it does the contrary. I don't know if in books is the same, but in games, and music it does. When I can't play the music I bought in my MP3 player I won't buy it again and again, I'll pirate, and won't bother buying any more music in that service. Now I only have one eReader, but if I change it and I can't read my books in my new eReader, I won't rebuy my books, I'll download them.
The analogy is not really the same as MP3's. The major ebook players have released multiple apps that work on multiple platforms. You would have to work real hard to find a platform where you could not read an ebook you had purchased. There is no "re-buying" involved.DRM is working in ebooks because it is not the same huge road block it was for music.
Stan wrote: "The analogy is not really the same as MP3's. The major ebook players have released multiple apps that work on multiple platforms. You would have to work real hard to find a platform where you could not read an ebook you had purchased. There is no "re-buying" involved.DRM is working in ebooks because it is not the same huge road block it was for music."
have you tried to read a book purchased off of "ibooks" on your Nook e-ink? I couldn't do it without Calibre stripping the DRM off of a book that I purchased. DRM only hurts the people who are trying to be honest. I have facebook friends who publicly post about illegally downloading any book they want. Stealing will never go away and DRM doesn't work. Ever.
In my opinion of course. ;)
The real question is this though: If all books were DRM Free and easily posted to those 'come and get it' sites, would those same friends stop their downloading? Or would they stop and go "wow.. I should pay for this!" and, well, pay for it?Stealing won't go away. Nope. And our current DRM has major problems with compatiblity between platforms (which bugs the HECK out of me). But I'm not sure it's totally without merit to help encourage those on the fence not to post them freely.
Micah wrote: "have you tried to read a book purchased off of "ibooks" on your Nook e-ink? I couldn't do it without Calibre stripping the DRM off of a book that I purchased. DRM only hurts the people who are trying to be honest. I have facebook friends who publicly post about illegally downloading any book they want. Stealing will never go away and DRM doesn't work. Ever."Very true. In the game world, CD Projekt released the game Witcher2 through GOG with no DRM. They also released it via hard media (and maybe some other electronic distributors, can't remember for sure) with DRM in place. According to an article I read, the DRM copy of the game was cracked and pirated within 2 hours. The non DRM version of the game was not found floating around.
I can't find the original article, but I found one that quotes it here:
Article
In regards to ebooks, everyone seems to be holding to the old model. Its not just the ebook arena, but all electronic distribution. I have hopes that they will eventually get it all worked out. In the mean time, all they're doing is harming their customers.
Rob wrote: "The real question is this though: If all books were DRM Free and easily posted to those 'come and get it' sites, would those same friends stop their downloading? Or would they stop and go "wow.. I should pay for this!" and, well, pay for it?"I don't know if they would stop. A few would but probably not all will. However if a work (music, book, game, or movie) is freely available without hindrance on another site what does the DRM version gain anybody? I have never read or heard a good answer to that question.
Now I'm not trying to say that everybody should just give up and let people share files and download freely; but what good does DRM actually do? I am a big believer in the "if it's good and easily accessible people will pay for it" model. Nobody should be punished by DRM restrictions on their content just because they didn't steal a file. Especially when that file is as easily accessible as a few MB e-pub book is.
Random wrote: "In regards to ebooks, everyone seems to be holding to the old model. Its not just the ebook arena, but all electronic distribution. I have hopes that they will eventually get it all worked out. In the mean time, all they're doing is harming their customers."
I hope the same thing. I would love to take all my Nook books one day and just have them available on an Amazon Kindle if/when I would decide to switch. A new model may come out if 5 years or so that I just need to have. If/when that day comes and I can not port my books over without "breaking the law" then Amazon will probably not be getting any of my money.
I don't know if they would stop. A few would but probably not all will. However if a work (music, book, game, or movie) is freely available without hindrance on another site what does the DRM version gain anybody? I have never read or heard a good answer to that question.Having had to spend a few cups of coffee grappling with this question, this was the best answer I could come up with:
It helps keep the people on the fence honest.
There are going to be people who will pay for content no matter what. Make it free with a tip jar and they'll put money in. Only have it on a "pirate site" and they'll just not touch it because "that's wrong". They're the sort that are committed paying artists.
There are going to be people who won't ever pay for anything ever. They're going to hit every download site they can find. If they want it they'll find a way to get it for free because, really, just about everything is available for free.
And then there are the people who make up the other 70% in the middle. The ones who might snag it for free if they stumble onto it but are just as likely to pay it (at a reasonable price) if they find it there first or more conveniently. They're not bad people and they're not really dishonest people. They're just consumers who are stuck in an imperfect system.
And they're the ones that DRM has to be designed for. That's why I do like what Amazon is trying to do with their Prime Lending, and with their book borrowing programs for eBooks. I think they get that people want those freedoms that come with Dead Trees but are willing to work with some restrictions so that a .prc file doesn't end up mass emailed.
So... there's an answer. I've honestly no idea if it's good or not.
I also admit to two things: A) I used to download No-CD hacks for every game I bought. I bought a game, installed it, found what No CD hacks were out there and then patched to that version. I hated to have to find the CD to play a game when I had already bought the content. B) I also recently went off on a major rant about people's impatience with content. In that rant it was about how some people justify downloads because they can't wait a few weeks for something to be come available in their region. But that's a little different...
The largest ebook format for years was Microsofts' .lit.The Microsoft e-reader site will close in June.
You can then stick those ebooks next to your
8-track tape and Betamax collection.
Sounds like Microsoft's 'Play For Sure', which you can't play anymore.
@Rob - a reasonable argument. I think you and I just disagree on principles. And that is great. I just think education is the way to combat illegal copying of digital goods. Not restricting digital content that somebody has paid money for. @Tamahome - exactly. And what a perfect name if only for illustration purposes. Any name you can put "won't" or "doesn't" in front of when it quits working gets an A+ in my book.
I could handle the geoblocking if there was a legal service in my territory that offered the same service and pricing as audible. "The Magicians" by Lev Grossman is blocked to me through audible, is there an Australian store that will sell me a digital Audio version? I can only find CD versions at ridiculous prices.I know what their arguments are as to why these stores have to geoblock the sale, but it still doesn't change that frustration you feel when you are prepared to spend actual money on something and get the slap down. Worse is the way Audible tries to hide the fact they even have the book rather than just being honest and displaying it upfront as unavailable.
