The unfortunate result of this type of policy is that only blockbusters will ever make it through the distribution hoops and New Zealanders (and South Africans, and Indians, etc.) will be denied access to most of the books that are published.

Language/translation rights can be a useful alternative to achieve this but only if you have a unique language. If, for instance, you’re a small English language market like New Zealand, it’s no barrier. The only way to have a chance of developing a local market is to have territorial rights.

It’s too easy to be swamped by large foreign players with their massive scale economies so that the local industry has no chance to get effectively established. It’s especially irksome when those overseas sites evade local sales taxes, too, giving a further opportunity to stymie a local industry.

We’re trying to grow a sustainable industry here in New Zealand and the last thing we need to see is the rapid arrival of large US sites taking the publishing profits from international bestsellers out of this small market through global rights deals. If this happens, we’ll be relegated to a tiny, weak cottage industry. Give us a break.

Let me give you an example – I happen to be a fan of Japanese pop music, jpop. Most of that genre is not available legally online for sale. Even on iTunes I’d need to somehow get access to the Japanese version of it, which requires a Japanese postal address. I have to resort to either going to Japan (expensive) and buying used CDs cheap, or importing (expensive as well – a new CD costs 3000 yen plus shipping).

Another example of how the music industry has limited access to content is through the Pandora service. Originally it was available to Europeans, but they were forced to close that down and limit it to a US-only service.

Even buying books from Amazon or the Sony library is denied to me because I don’t happen to live in the US. I can still buy the paper editions of the same books from Amazon however.

I could give lots of other examples from the content production industry, but I think I’ve made my point. What’s happening is that while the Internet is a global network without borders, they’re trying to artificially limit sales and protect the distribution chain. They’re too closely tied to various paper distribution deals and can’t exactly sever ties and go e-book only, at least not now.

Unfortunately we as consumers can do nothing but sit and watch as they try to limit the “damage”. Without global distribution deals in place the alternatives left are paper books and piracy, neither of which are very desirable. At least with paper books you can still import the books you want, but e-books will probably put an end to that, unless publishers wise up and realize that ultimately the days of hard copy distribution chains are numbered.

As we move to a more global consumer market I think that copyright law either needs to be changed, or at least how it’s practiced. This doesn’t just go for books, but for music, movies, TV – any creative work. If you release a work for general public consumption, you shouldn’t be able to restrict or limit the distribution and sale of it, or the price it’s being sold to the end-consumer (dictate different prices for different regional markets).

Thanks,
David

each country has its own set of copyright laws, and the thing with *translations* seems like it could get a bit complicated. but no one asks at entry points into the u.s. which *books* one has. people aren’t required to return out-of-print copies of books to their publishers for destruction/disposal. and exactly zero of the german-language books i have purchased in the past are published – or even printed – in the u.s.

or perhaps that’s the entire infuriating irony: that the *less-restrictIVE* technology is *more restrictED*.

A: No prob! Just wanted to clarify re countries vs. retailers. Alas, I doubt this is a glitch, but you never know. Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

F: We’ll hope that Steve and Scott or B&N will answer soon. Couldn’t agree more that people should be able to buy books for keeps! This is one of the major themes of the TeleBlog, and the reason why I’ anti-DRM and anti-Tower of eBabel.

Thanks,
David

Now, let’s say I have a local furniture business, and you come to my store and sell you a piece of furniture. Two years later, my lease runs out on the store and I have to stop selling my furniture there. Would anyone expect I could now go to my customer’s homers and remove all the furniture I sold already? No. New customers would not be able to buy further furniture, maybe. But people who already bought it, well, they bought it in good faith and it’s theirs. Right?

Point number 3, I am just really disappointed that Fictionwise, who used to have such pride in their customer service, is now abandoning their customers. No replies to my first email for almost two weeks, then when I followed up, I was dumped on a PR person—who then ignored me too. Not cool, Scott and Steve. Imho, there is some serious damage control that needs to happen here. Fictionwise is falling fast in customer esteem, and they don’t even seem to care about it.

Sorry about that! It’s what I meant, in a roundabout generic way!

I’m still hoping this is a glitch, but I’m cynical enough to not let hope get out of control!

Thoughtfully,
Jack Tingle