The Next Battleground: Territorial Rights
I recall seeing a story recently about how the UK is retaining Commonwealth rights, annoying publishers in Australia and the like. Now the UK houses are moaning about US houses retaining ebook rights. From bookseller.com…
Amazon and Sony have both committed to the PA that they will protect territoriality, and the school that says you can’t is not accurate—you only have to look at iTunes. There are all sorts of reasons why I would want to protect territoriality, to do with timing, cross-promotion of the e-book and physical book, and market pricing.
Are you kidding me? iTunes is broken. There may be reasons why publishers want to protect territoriality, but they aren’t motivated by the consumers’ interests. Amazon, Sony, and Apple treat the Canadian market as an afterthought. I am not waiting around for you to sell off the rights, I am going to bittorrent. I am buying my iPhone under the counter. Get with the program people — you can’t impose artificial scarcity anymore. These are infinitely abundant products. The old models don’t apply. Times change so change the terms of the deal. I am thinking co-production style. Or split the profits after the sale, not before.
In case you couldn’t tell, I go mental when I am willing to give my money to someone for a product I want — and they won’t take it for territorial rights issues. Go global or go home.
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