From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 19:08:45 -0400

All interests are indeed aligned.  That doesn't mean the situation will
change anytime soon.  I don't know the particulars of the volume you
referenced, but for many books, in any language, the problem is the
retrospective clearing of rights.  It has a big administrative cost. (This
is also the primary reason for the orphan works problem.)  There are also
different rights issues for print and electronic books.

A couple years ago I worked with a client that had set up a French-language
Web site for academic titles.  It was print only.  50% of the sales for
that site came from outside France.

Joe Esposito

On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 4:24 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 21:54:16 +0200
>
> Joe, I have to count your response a worthy effort, though this title was
> but one example of various German books I've tried to buy over a period of
> time.  Suhrkamp has no objection or difficulty whatsoever in selling the
> print editions of these books in German over the Internet, whether through
> Amazon.de or buch.de or other sites, around the world to all comers, no
> questions asked.  I don't think German language authors very often find
> publishers in other countries clamoring for the rights to publish them *in
> German* in those countries.  So whatever restriction is being imagined here
> is fresh and new to e-books:  I grant you it may be the result of
> interpreting some clause like "all rights not expressly granted are hereby
> tied up in a way disadvantageous to author, publisher, booksellers, and
> readers for all eternity".  Probably shouldn't sign such clauses.
>
> But the real point to me is that Amazon wants to dominate the universe
> with innovative and successful retail.  Making this an issue and fixing it
> would be a good cause for international understanding.  I'm eccentric, an
> American who reads German for pleasure.  But there are native speakers of
> German living in the US and Bahrain and China who would love to get books
> in their language through the magic network.  But if they don't have an
> address and a credit card in Germany (or likely Switzerland or Austria),
> they're out of luck too.  And my colleagues who teach German would like to
> have their students improve their German would also love to be able to have
> them get books easily.  Germanophone governments, publishers, authors, and
> other cultural institutions would love to have more people around the world
> working on improving their German.  ALL INTERESTS ARE ALIGNED HERE.  Is the
> problem only that nobody's found a smart lawyer yet?
>
> Jim O'Donnell
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 8:51 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:28:36 -0400
>>
>> It makes no sense until you look at the contractual history.  I have
>> no idea what Hesse's contract says, but it likely grants rights only
>> to German in Germany.  That would have been a print contract, for
>> which there has been on "upgrading" for ebooks without a new
>> negotiation with the author's estate.
>>
>> These problems make no sense and they will not go away simply because
>> they make no sense.  They will persist for decades.
>>
>> The good news is that new books are being published with different
>> contracts, which are mostly global in orientation.  Many, many
>> exceptions to this especially for English-language and
>> Spanish-language books.
>>
>> Joe Esposito
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 4:10 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> > 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
>>
>