From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2012 19:52:45 +0200 I'd like to read Hesse's Glasperlenspiel on my iPad. Looks like it can't be done. Amazon.de won't sell it to me, nor will buch.de -- not for delivery to my country. Amazon says it's the publishers' fault. This means that Suhrkamp, who sells the print and e-book editions, will sell me the print through various dealers but not the e-book. Can this make sense? (Never mind the chatter on Internet sites that you can re-register your Kindle to Germany. Quite apart from the risks of relocating and then probably discovering that things you'd bought before won't work any more, there's the nuisance value of having to get a credible German address and likely a German credit card, etc., etc., etc. And the selection of German-language books purchasable through US Amazon is pathetic. Best solution I can think of is to suborn a German friend to purchase the non-Kindle format [pdf] e-book edition and then re-sell it to me -- legally?) I'd welcome either news how to achieve my goal or some explanation of how it can make sense in a globalized world not to sell books outside your own borders. As I understand the restrictions in print world, they depend on having the rights to sell in X country, where at least the publisher can make sure that the same artifact is available in as many countries as possible. But for now it appears that in-copyright German literature may be read electronically only in Germany. I have every reason to think that similar restrictions apply at other borders, in both directions. All sorts of higher order educational and cultural benefits flow from people being able to acquire "content" in different languages. Why would books be different? Jim O'Donnell