Comments on: You want to buy eBooks for a fair price? Only if you are American…

By: RKZ

RKZ — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:24:16 +0000

It has reached the point that if you live in Australia you run a Mac you HAVE to buy Adobe ebooks and run the appalling Digital Editions. There are NO online ebook retailers in Australia that sell ereader ebooks for Palm OS. For me as a person with a physical disability ebooks are my only independent access to books. I don’t know what more frustrating the microsoft monopoly or DRM without equality of access.

By: Dragged to the front page: eBooks you can’t read | PDA-247

Dragged to the front page: eBooks you can’t read | PDA-247 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:57:04 +0000

[...] of Eric’s comments has been ‘dragged to the front page’ today concerning a 247 article on eBooks and geographic [...]

By: vboelema

vboelema — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:33:27 +0000

I stopped using ereader because it’s app kept crashing on my previous Nokia. Does anyone use Mobipocket? Or do they have the same restrictions?

This sort of carry on does encourage people to find books their own way though doesn’t it?!

By: eccleshill

eccleshill — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:32:58 +0000

Not buying any ebooks at the moment until ereader & fictionwise stop treating UK readers as second-class citizens. Haven’t stop reading ebooks, though…

By: joel

joel — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:46:44 +0000

OK some barriers are lifted (tarrifs) but anything IP related is enforced..

By: joel

joel — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:37:29 +0000

“Doesn’t the UK and Australia have a free trade agreement that should remove these trade barriers?”

Since when was the free trade agreement about benefiting consumers outside the US, and removing barriers that benefit big business?? I thought it was about ENFORCING barriers to benefit mostly US coporations..

Not to mention the benefits for Big Pharma, the PBS system in Australia was a specific target of the free trade agreements..

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:32:24 +0000

The geographic restriction is annoying me immensely. Even Australians are getting walloped around by an archaic publishing model.

Two things can be said AGAINST geographic restrictions.
1) The model is applied print books and against parallel importation to protect the print book industry. But we are talking about electronic media which is sold through only one supplier – a completely different model. A bit like the Apple Appstore – except that it hates the rest of the world if you live outside the US.

2) The very practice itself is anti-competitive and a restraint of trade. Why can’t I buy something which someone in the US (or Canada) is able to purchase from a single source supplier (barring trade secrets and so on)?
Doesn’t the UK and Australia have a free trade agreement that should remove these trade barriers?

I have queried Fictionwise / EReader / Barnes and Noble on this and their response has been disappointing. The only other avenue is to source these books from some less than legitimate sources which rob the authors of their dues.

I love reading ebooks and to date, I have over 700 ebooks in the Fictionwise library. Since the geographic restrictions have been implemented, the selection has been severely limited.

I don’t see the logic on “geographic restrictions” on books published several years ago and difficult to obtain in the US and never imported into my country.