eBooks from Waterstones.com longer selling eBooks outside of the UK and Eire

[neilmarr]

My apologies, ladies and gents. I've just noticed that my new thread here has crossed in the post with a similar one from AprilHare here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=103969

Perhaps one of our mods team could delete my thread and I'll post a comment in April's slightly earlier one instead because there is already reaction showing there.

Apologies and best wishes. Neil

[neilmarr]

I'm sorry that I spotted this thread from AprilHare just after I opened a new thread of my own on the same lines. I've asked our mods to remove it. Instead, here's my own OP. Apologies and best wishes. Neil

I just had this note through from Waterstones two minutes ago. And note that the ban is backdated to six days before this letter was sent out. Unbloodybelievable!

I use a Sony in France. Outside the US, I can't access the Sony Store, so I've always been re-directed to B&N and Waterstones. Now Waterstones is slamming the door on ebook readers outside the UK and Eire. The reason, they claim, complex georestrictions. What utter bollox!

Is the industry determined to drive 'double-foreigners' (neither US nor UK residents ... or Irishmen, come to that) to 'alternative' means of acquisition?


From: info [mailto:info@waterstones.com]
Sent: 26 October 2010 12:54
To: info
Subject: eBooks from Waterstones.com

Dear Customer,

We see from our records that you have previously purchased an eBook from Waterstones.com whilst having a registered address outside of the UK and Ireland.

We regret that as of 20th October 2010, we are no longer able to sell eBooks to customers placing an order from anywhere outside of the UK and Ireland. We have had to take this action to comply with the legal demands of publishers regarding the territories into which we can sell eBooks.

Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience that this may cause.

Please note: Your previously purchased eBooks are not affected by this and will still be available in your ‘Digital order history’ in your online account.


Kind regards,

Waterstones.com Customer Service

And don't be so ready to blame the publishers, folks. Sure the Big Five are sometimes in a sticky position with country-specific deals with agents and authors on individual titles, but there are hundreds of smaller publishing houses, like my own, that hold international rights to all its treebooks and ebooks.

No problems for us elsewhere. This is a matter of a store writing off whole nations of ebook readers because they don't feel it's worth their bother to cope with the legal issues that might be involved in sorting georestrictions on some titles by some publishers. Neil

[bevdeforges]

As you mention, Neil, the really annoying part about this is for those of us living outside our country of origin ("double foreigners" I kind of like that one) who don't have ready access to reading material in our own language where we are resident. Yet, I can hop on the Eurostar and drop hundreds of pounds in a bricks and mortar Waterstones or WHSmith with no one ever bothering to worry about where those p-books will actually be read.

It may be time to revert to my "plan B" - change the billing address on my US credit card to a US one and invest in a VPN to "avoid detection." Seems an awful waste of time and resources.

[EowynCarter]

As you mention, Neil, the really annoying part about this is for those of us living outside our country of origin

Yup. I remember having to send a mail to steam support, telling them that yes, i did have a reason to pay with a French credit card, while i was in Denmark...

And tf1 vision telling me i had to be living in france. umf !

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Is the industry determined to drive 'double-foreigners' (neither US nor UK residents ... or Irishmen, come to that) to 'alternative' means of acquisition?

Yes. If you're a person who likes to read books in another language than your own, you're simply screwed and soon will be forced to go anywhere but the official stores.

There simply are some books I just can't buy anymore because nobody is selling them to me or they are in Topaz format which I refuse to buy (I won't buy PDF books either).

[FBoespflug]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Umf !

This really sucks. I recived no such mail. Maybe france being in europe, is still in the "allowed" list.
I want to read american and English authors in English, not badly translated french.

Amazon really ? They are geo-restictiing me kinda badly.

I received such a mail two hours ago. It becomes more and more difficult to get some recents english / american ebooks in France.

[Dr. Drib]

No problem. I'll go ahead and merge your posts to her thread.


Don
(Moderator)

[Steven Lake]

This is ridiculous. The big publishing companies are just totally shooting themselves in the foot with this one. It's like they *WANT* ebooks to fail, or at the very least, they want to make ebook piracy so rampant that it kills ebooks by making them look the same way mp3's did back when they first came out. IE, only *pirates* use them, and therefore if you're using them, you're an evil pirate. The only other reason to encourage piracy like this is to expand the presence of ebooks in the same way mp3's gave birth to mp3 players and eventually made them cheap. (ok, *cheaper* than they were at first)

Now that might not be the reason, and could really just be a money/power grab by the big publishers. But if it is, why do it this way!? My gawds, I do everything I can to make sure my books are available worldwide, and yet the big guys are doing everything they can to stop you from having it any way but on their terms. This is honestly stupid.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by FBoespflug

I received such a mail two hours ago. It becomes more and more difficult to get some recents english / american ebooks in France.

Yeah, going to waterstones, i saw the message clearly.

[neilmarr]

IT GETS WORSE FOR SONY USERS IN EUROPE!

As I mentioned earlier, the Sony store is not an option outside the USA, so users are/were directed to Waterstones or Barnes & Noble. That's all, folks. We now know that outside the UK and Eire, Waterstones is off limits to other Europeans as of last week.

An hour ago, I tried to buy *Life* by Keith Richards at Barnes & Noble. Guess what ... we detect that your account is not registered in the UK or Eire and this ebook is not available to you for download.

So is B&N also off limits to continental Europe, too? In that case, it means that Sony users like me have nowhere to go for big-sellers now unless we strip DRM from an Amazon download (which I can't be arsed to do), and that's probably georestricted on this title, too -- or we go pirate.

Although I won't pick up one of the many pirate copies available today, I'd have no beef against any Sony user outside the UK and US who does out of sheer frustration. This is a total nonsense and doesn't deter piracy and breach of copyright and publishing rights -- it actively encourages it!

There is obviously no publisher-imposed geographical restriction because I can already buy the treebook at point-of-sale ... IN FRANCE! It's just another case of imposition by stores that can't be bothered to put their books in order.

Yours. Very Angry of Menton (Mrs)

[neilmarr]

***This is ridiculous. The big publishing companies are just totally shooting themselves in the foot***

Steve, it's not often (if ever) that thee and me cross swords, but please stop laying all the blame on publishers (though I do appreciate that you stipulate *big* publishers).

As you'll see in my post above *Life* is already available in English in treebook form AT POINT-OF-SALE in France. This means there can be no publisher-imposed geographical restriction on its sale here (big house or poor house).

The problem with ebooks is that point-of-sale is everything. A French or German reader can buy a treebook from Amazon in the US because the legal point-of-sale is in the US. Ebooks are different. Legal point-of-sale is the location of the computer used for download (in my case France), so I am denied a book where the publisher of a particular ebook version does not hold European rights.

But stores are using this perfectly understandable situation as an excuse to save themselves the work of sorting out which books they can legally sell and where. Much easier for them to treat, say, Continental Europe as a bloody nuisance and just block all sales. It also means they don't have to fiddle with all the EU's various member-countries' differing Value Added Tax claims, calculate them, fiddle with prices to compensate, and then pay up.

I've come across cases where ebooks from my own house -- that holds contractual international print and digital rights -- cannot be bought in countries where the very authors of the books live and work.

It's bad enough that some publishers are facing this problem without folks putting on the agony by laying the blame clear of the front doorsteps of the darned stores themselves. Very, very often (as with Sony, Waterstones and now B&N) it's quite obvious that the stores impose these restrictions purely and simply for their own convenience.

Rant over, Steve. Rapier sheathed. Pals again?

Cheers. Neil

[EowynCarter]

It's bad enough that some publishers are facing this problem without folks putting on the agony by laying the blame clear of the front doorsteps of the darned stores themselves. Very, very often (as with Sony, Waterstones and now B&N) it's quite obvious that the stores impose these restrictions purely and simply for their own convenience.

There would be no problem at all with the publishers didn't wanted to restrict some of their books in the first place...

it's quite obvious that the stores impose these restrictions purely and simply for their own convenience.

Given the mess making such a system can be... I won't blame them. They are acting so because publishers are acting like idiots... Publishers make the shops's life a pain, so the shops make our own life a pain.

It also means they don't have to fiddle with all the EU's various member-countries' differing Value Added Tax claims, calculate them, fiddle with prices to compensate, and then pay up.

That didn't pose them any problem before.

The problem with ebooks is that point-of-sale is everything. A French or German reader can buy a treebook from Amazon in the US because the legal point-of-sale is in the US. Ebooks are different. Legal point-of-sale is the location of the computer used for download (in my case France), so I am denied a book where the publisher of a particular ebook version does not hold European rights.

Then, why can amazon.fr (last i cheeked, located in france), sell me american p-book ?
And no, this is not understandable at all.

And i don't give a damn whose fault it is. I just want to buy e-books, so they should get their act together.

[neilmarr]

***And i don't give a damn whose fault it is. I just want to buy e-books, so they should get their act together***

My feeling exactly, Eowyn. Just don't think there aren't publishers out there trying to make it so. All karma to ya. Neil

[kiwipippa]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

I just had this note through from Waterstones two minutes ago. And note that the ban is backdated to six days before this letter was sent out. Unbloodybelievable!

I use a Sony in France. Outside the US, I can't access the Sony Store, so I've always been re-directed to B&N and Waterstones. Now Waterstones is slamming the door on ebook readers outside the UK and Eire. The reason, they claim, complex georestrictions. What utter bollox!

Is the industry determined to drive 'double-foreigners' (neither US nor UK residents ... or Irishmen, come to that) to 'alternative' means of acquisition?

Neil.

Neil, haven't seen you this riled up before!

Geographic restrictions just seem so wrong in the internet age. And so contradictory - I can buy a paperback book from Book Depository UK and have it shipped FREE to New Zealand (goodness knows how much that costs them), but we can't buy ebooks....

Unfortunately, even very honest people (I put myself in that category) are now looking at ways of getting round this. Otherwise I might as well throw my e-reader in the bin.

On a positive note, I contacted Kobobooks regarding geographic restrictions in New Zealand and had a personal response from their head of purchasing really empathising with me and advising that they have just reached agreement to stock Hachette in Australia and will be looking to do the same for New Zealand. So there is hope for us in the longer term. They are a specialist ebook site therefore it is in their interests to get as many publishers up as possible. I think the others like WH Smiths, Waterstones etc see ebooks as an "add on" and at the moment it's too hard for them to make the tough calls on so they roll over.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

***This is ridiculous. The big publishing companies are just totally shooting themselves in the foot***

Steve, it's not often (if ever) that thee and me cross swords, but please stop laying all the blame on publishers (though I do appreciate that you stipulate *big* publishers).

Yeah, I probably am carpet bombing that statement a bit, and going a bit broad, but still, it irks me how some of the big publishing companies can be so clueless about stuff like this. That sentiment of course probably comes from being in the FOSS world so long and having to duel it out with all the big anti-consumer, money grubbing corps there. It's probably made me a little jaded in my world view. ^_^;;

Rant over, Steve. Rapier sheathed. Pals again?

Cheers. Neil

haha. Like we'd be anything but pals. It takes quite a bit to get me to unfriend someone. ^_^ We might spat a bit here and there, but we're still friends.