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