Global mode over ? Lets see.....

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#1334100 30-Jun-2015 13:24

I have to say that imposing a geographical structure on a product offered over the internet does seem ridiculous.

I can understand for a physical product but not purely electronic content.

I'm hoping overtime that providers and copy owners will switch onto this and make online offerings more universal, as existing distribution agreements expire. I may be overly optimistic, but I think it's a rational business model for them not to have distributors for anything other than physical products.

The one exception to this IMO is live sport. I can see why elite sports rights have to be exclusive/expensive. It's live entertainment, expensive to stage and worth much less after the game is over.

Mike

jamesrt

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#1334112 30-Jun-2015 13:44

MikeAqua: I have to say that imposing a geographical structure on a product offered over the internet does seem ridiculous.

<rant>
I want to buy the latest book (#6 in a series) by one of my favourite SciFi authors for my Kindle. However, "amazon.com" won't sell it to me - in fact, the website refuses to admit the book exists for Kindle. Geolocked.

Apparently, NZ is covered by the "UK & Commonwealth" publishing rights, so I'm supposed to go to Amazon.co.uk. However, amazon.co.uk says "Only UK residents can buy kindle books; international sales should go to amazon.com". See earlier sentence. There is Amazon AU; but the Australian (physical) publisher isn't going to release LAST YEARS book (i.e. book 5 in the series) until January 2016 - 18 MONTHS after it was first published. WTF.

I literally CANNOT give my money, which I will happily part with, to any vendor for this electronic product.

How stupid is that. Even MORE stupid is that I *COULD* buy the physical book via Amazon.com and they'll happily ship it to NZ. Paper yes, electrons, no....

Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb....
</rant>

Wade

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#1334114 30-Jun-2015 13:45

One major downside that i see is that due to regional distribution model companies like Netflix can buy HBO/Disney/BBC/etc programming from regions where these companies have no presence, globalizing distribution could see an end to that. having the current status quo with Netflix and Unotelly is probably better for me the consumer!!

mdf

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#1334126 30-Jun-2015 13:59

jamesrt:
MikeAqua: I have to say that imposing a geographical structure on a product offered over the internet does seem ridiculous.

<rant>
I want to buy the latest book (#6 in a series) by one of my favourite SciFi authors for my Kindle. However, "amazon.com" won't sell it to me - in fact, the website refuses to admit the book exists for Kindle. Geolocked.

Apparently, NZ is covered by the "UK & Commonwealth" publishing rights, so I'm supposed to go to Amazon.co.uk. However, amazon.co.uk says "Only UK residents can buy kindle books; international sales should go to amazon.com". See earlier sentence. There is Amazon AU; but the Australian (physical) publisher isn't going to release LAST YEARS book (i.e. book 5 in the series) until January 2016 - 18 MONTHS after it was first published. WTF.

I literally CANNOT give my money, which I will happily part with, to any vendor for this electronic product.

How stupid is that. Even MORE stupid is that I *COULD* buy the physical book via Amazon.com and they'll happily ship it to NZ. Paper yes, electrons, no....

Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb....
</rant>

Things are changing slowly. Netflix is becoming more vertically integrated (others are doing it too) by producing original content. If they own the content themselves, they don't have to worry about distribution rights being chopped up and sold world wide. That has it's own competitive concerns though.

On books in particular, one of the better sci fi novels I've read recently is the Silo Saga trilogy by Hugh Howey ("Sand" is also very good. He seems to go for the one-word titles). While he's sold the publishing rights for hard copy books, he's kept the digital rights himself.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324678604578340752088305668

I'd already bought his books by the time I read this, but would have bought them just to support this principle.

Gilco2

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#1334131 30-Jun-2015 14:09

jamesrt:
MikeAqua: I have to say that imposing a geographical structure on a product offered over the internet does seem ridiculous.

<rant>
I want to buy the latest book (#6 in a series) by one of my favourite SciFi authors for my Kindle. However, "amazon.com" won't sell it to me - in fact, the website refuses to admit the book exists for Kindle. Geolocked.

Apparently, NZ is covered by the "UK & Commonwealth" publishing rights, so I'm supposed to go to Amazon.co.uk. However, amazon.co.uk says "Only UK residents can buy kindle books; international sales should go to amazon.com". See earlier sentence. There is Amazon AU; but the Australian (physical) publisher isn't going to release LAST YEARS book (i.e. book 5 in the series) until January 2016 - 18 MONTHS after it was first published. WTF.

I literally CANNOT give my money, which I will happily part with, to any vendor for this electronic product.

How stupid is that. Even MORE stupid is that I *COULD* buy the physical book via Amazon.com and they'll happily ship it to NZ. Paper yes, electrons, no....

Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb....
</rant>

have you seen if Kobo have it. I have had the same problem at times but then been able to buy it from Kobo.

HTPC Intel Pentium G3258 cpu, Gigabyte H97n-wifi motherboard, , 8GB DDR3 ram, onboard graphics. Hauppuage HVR 5500 tuner, Silverstone LC16M case, Windows 10 pro 64 bit using Nextpvr and Kodi

sultanoswing

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#1334228 30-Jun-2015 15:44

jamesrt:
MikeAqua: I have to say that imposing a geographical structure on a product offered over the internet does seem ridiculous.

<rant>
I want to buy the latest book (#6 in a series) by one of my favourite SciFi authors for my Kindle. However, "amazon.com" won't sell it to me - in fact, the website refuses to admit the book exists for Kindle. Geolocked.

Apparently, NZ is covered by the "UK & Commonwealth" publishing rights, so I'm supposed to go to Amazon.co.uk. However, amazon.co.uk says "Only UK residents can buy kindle books; international sales should go to amazon.com". See earlier sentence. There is Amazon AU; but the Australian (physical) publisher isn't going to release LAST YEARS book (i.e. book 5 in the series) until January 2016 - 18 MONTHS after it was first published. WTF.

I literally CANNOT give my money, which I will happily part with, to any vendor for this electronic product.

How stupid is that. Even MORE stupid is that I *COULD* buy the physical book via Amazon.com and they'll happily ship it to NZ. Paper yes, electrons, no....

Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb....
</rant>

Dumb indeed!

Have you tried to find it on OpenLibrary? Free books you can borrow for a week. Not sure if it supports Kindle, but I'm pretty sure they do.

https://openlibrary.org/

EDIT: You *may* be able to use your Kindle to borrow books, but can read older free books: https://openlibrary.org/help/faq/borrow#Kindle

jamesrt

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#1334263 30-Jun-2015 16:05

I don't want to derail the thread by going too far off topic, but...

Gilco2: have you seen if Kobo have it. I have had the same problem at times but then been able to buy it from Kobo.

"Too Hard, not Legal." - By which I mean this would involve DRM stripping and eBook conversion (Kobo being ePub format) at a minimum.

sultanoswing: You *may* be able to use your Kindle to borrow books

The link talks about having to sideload Adobe Digital Editions on a Kingle Fire, which means they are using ePub format. Once again, "Too Hard, not Legal" for the same reasons.

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littleheaven

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#1334677 1-Jul-2015 09:25

jamesrt: I don't want to derail the thread by going too far off topic, but...

Gilco2: have you seen if Kobo have it. I have had the same problem at times but then been able to buy it from Kobo.

"Too Hard, not Legal." - By which I mean this would involve DRM stripping and eBook conversion (Kobo being ePub format) at a minimum.

sultanoswing: You *may* be able to use your Kindle to borrow books

The link talks about having to sideload Adobe Digital Editions on a Kingle Fire, which means they are using ePub format. Once again, "Too Hard, not Legal" for the same reasons.

I guess setting up a US Amazon account probably falls under the THNL umbrella as well? In which case I can recommend The Book Depository - free worldwide shipping - to get the old skool hard copy of your book, to tide you over until you can get the Kindle version. Not ideal but at least you'd get to read it.

Sometimes it beggars belief at how hard it is to actually legally buy something.

Geek girl. Freelance copywriter and editor at Unmistakable.co.nz.

jamesrt

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#1335080 1-Jul-2015 14:28

littleheaven: I guess setting up a US Amazon account probably falls under the THNL umbrella as well?

Actually, haven't looked into that; but the Kindle book is probably DRM'ed to the actual Kindle (based on H/W serial #) OR to the Amazon account for the Kindle App. So, stripping the DRM to put onto my Kindle would be "TH,NL" again, or would presumably require me to de-register and re-register the Kindle, in which case "Bye Bye Other Content". This is not a winning scenario, I fear...

littleheaven: Sometimes it beggars belief at how hard it is to actually legally buy something.

Yes. I thought businesses exist to make money, but some of the arbitrary barriers they choose to put in the way...

JimmyH

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#1336820 4-Jul-2015 10:02

Interestingly, at the same time we are losing access to this type of service, the Aussies seem to be getting it

insane

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#1336821 4-Jul-2015 10:13

JimmyH: Interestingly, at the same time we are losing access to this type of service, the Aussies seem to be getting it

That'll be interesting given they don't have the same parallel importing rules as we do here.

From the sounds of recent happenings within Callplus, Orcon, Slingshot, Flip etc following the M2 buyout it sounds like they just want to cut costs in NZ. Just a shame M2 bought Callplus when they did as I reckon Mark and Malcolm had the balls to take the big guys on.

ce1vin

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#1337119 4-Jul-2015 22:18

495 !!

natlukros

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#1337198 5-Jul-2015 08:13

Ive signed up to unotellys trial period, so far seems good. Was not difficult for me to get working on my laptop at all.

Gilco2

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#1337215 5-Jul-2015 09:22

littleheaven:

Gilco2: have you seen if Kobo have it. I have had the same problem at times but then been able to buy it from Kobo.

"Too Hard, not Legal." - By which I mean this would involve DRM stripping and eBook conversion (Kobo being ePub format) at a minimum.

sultanoswing: You *may* be able to use your Kindle to borrow books

The link talks about having to sideload Adobe Digital Editions on a Kingle Fire, which means they are using ePub format. Once again, "Too Hard, not Legal" for the same reasons.

.

"Too Hard,not Legal" is incorrect. Perfectly legal buying Kobo books. No drm stripping. Most devices have apps to read Kobo Books on. On Windows you can use Kobo app or Adobe Digital Editions, all legal. Not that expensive to buy basic Kobo reader either. Really comes down to how bad you really want the book

HTPC Intel Pentium G3258 cpu, Gigabyte H97n-wifi motherboard, , 8GB DDR3 ram, onboard graphics. Hauppuage HVR 5500 tuner, Silverstone LC16M case, Windows 10 pro 64 bit using Nextpvr and Kodi

mdf

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#1337583 6-Jul-2015 09:16

JimmyH: Interestingly, at the same time we are losing access to this type of service, the Aussies seem to be getting it

The reference to importing the technology from New Zealand makes it look like Bypass Networks Services selling the globalmode service.

It would be somewhat ironic (or perhaps perverse?) if the result of the settlement is that a NZ company can't sell it's services in New Zealand/to New Zealanders, but can sell it to overseas customers due to jurisdictional issues.

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