# Sony e-reader



## Trish1 (Nov 30, 2010)

I bought a Sony e-reader about a year ago and downloaded books from Waterstones. Recently Waterstones have told me that they will no longer send e-books to an address outside the UK I challenged this but no joy.
WH Smith will send outside UK if you pay with a CC registered to an address in UK Has anyone else had a problem with this reader?


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

How absurd. Presumably this is because of different VAT rates? What about Amazon - or do they only supply e-books in Kindle-friendly format?


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

Well, it's the same if you have an amazon kindle. If you buy it from abroad, when they send it to you, you get registered on amazon.com, and thats the only place you get books from. So you get American spalling / american newspapers etc etc.

If you buy it in the UK registered to amazon UK and then start downloading from abroad, then they eventually suss out you are not in the UK and swap you to .com

Only way round it for you is possible a proxy server to cloak you


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

The issue of e-readers and geographical restrictions on e-books is a major PITA at the moment. Both Waterstones and WH Smiths have discontinued sales to customers outside the UK and Ireland in recent months. This is believed to be related to the Big Five Agency Pricing agreement, whereby five of the largest English language publishers insist that electronic booksellers must support publisher established minimum prices.

Amazon has established a UK based Kindle store through their .co.uk website, however this, too, is limited to Kindles registered to accounts with UK or Irish delivery addresses. Everyone else has to purchase Kindle books through the US website - and they do impose geographical restrictions according to where your account is registered.

It is possible that there are VAT issues involved, as the EU has for some reason decided that e-books are not "publications" entitled to lower VAT rates, but rather "data files" subject to full VAT and that for e-books, the "point of sale" is not the location of the vendor, but rather that of the purchaser (i.e. the billing address for the credit card used for payment).

If you have a Sony Reader, there are a few online bookshops that will sell to those of us located in Europe - mainly Kobobooks Free eBooks for iPhone, Blackberry or Palm Pre - Kobo , Books on Board Ebooks | BooksOnBoard | Online eBook Store, Downloadable Audio Books, Digital eBooks | Ebooks | BooksOnBoard and "independent" book vendors like Smashwords.
Cheers,
Bev


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## MacRov (Oct 26, 2010)

Can you not get someone to buy the e-books in the uk then stick them on a cd/dvd and post them ?


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Stravinsky said:


> Well, it's the same if you have an amazon kindle. If you buy it from abroad, when they send it to you, you get registered on amazon.com, and thats the only place you get books from. So you get American spalling / american newspapers etc etc.
> 
> If you buy it in the UK registered to amazon UK and then start downloading from abroad, then they eventually suss out you are not in the UK and swap you to .com
> 
> Only way round it for you is possible a proxy server to cloak you


We´ve downloaded masses of excellent free and very cheap stuff for our Kindle, in various formats (I´m guessing the Sony reader only permits a proprietary format?)

Ours is registered in the US but that isn´t a problem, we wouldn´t use it for newspapers. OH (who knows about these things) reckons they can routinely check accounts using proxy server IPs and will disable your account if they find out.


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

MacRov said:


> Can you not get someone to buy the e-books in the uk then stick them on a cd/dvd and post them ?


The way e-books work is that they are "registered" to a particular device so that you can't exchange files.
Cheers,
Bev


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

Alcalaina said:


> We´ve downloaded masses of excellent free and very cheap stuff for our Kindle, in various formats (I´m guessing the Sony reader only permits a proprietary format?)
> 
> Ours is registered in the US but that isn´t a problem, we wouldn´t use it for newspapers. OH (who knows about these things) reckons they can routinely check accounts using proxy server IPs and will disable your account if they find out.


Actually, the open format for eReaders is ePub, which the Sony will read, while the Kindle won't. Still, the publishers use their own form of DRM (digital rights management) to "protect" their works.

There is a ton of reading material available for free in most of the popular formats on Project Gutenberg and similar sites, though it's all out of copyright material. You can download newspapers and magazines from their websites using an open software called Calibre, as well as manage your e-library.

What many folks do is to strip the DRM from books they have bought - or books they can only find in a format other than for their e-reader. Once the DRM is stripped, conversion is pretty simple (again, using Calibre) - however the legality of stripping DRM even from books you've bought and paid for is subject to question in many areas.
Cheers,
Bev


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

I have to say though that there are people I know who live abroad who originally registered their kindles in the UK and are able to download from the UK site.

Mine is registered on the UK site. I dont live permanently in the UK
The whole idea of the kindle, and also in their advertising is that you can download books whilst on the move anywhere in the world. Smart bit of mis selling maybe?


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

Stravinsky said:


> I have to say though that there are people I know who live abroad who originally registered their kindles in the UK and are able to download from the UK site.
> 
> Mine is registered on the UK site. I dont live permanently in the UK
> The whole idea of the kindle, and also in their advertising is that you can download books whilst on the move anywhere in the world. Smart bit of mis selling maybe?


This change is just recent - and apparently it's controlled by the "delivery address" you have registered for your account with the UK branch of Amazon. (I have an account that covers at least three Amazon sites, but the delivery address is the same as the billing address of my credit cards - i.e. here in France.)

I know of folks who report no problem simply changing their "delivery address" on their Amazon.co.uk account to any valid address in the UK and then they can buy and download Kindle books with no problem. They then change their account address when they buy something that needs to be delivered to wherever they actually are. A few have been asked to "validate" their address after changing it a certain number of times.

Actually, Amazon was kind of blindsided by the Agency e-book pricing agreement and they do seem to do their best to comply nominally, while still leaving some wiggle room for those who want to get around the technicalities.
Cheers,
Bev


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## lynn (Sep 25, 2008)

This is a very interesting thread. I've just ordered a kindle for my daughter for Christmas. I didn't want to pay for one from the states, as it is more expensive, and anyway, they said they couldn't deliver by Christmas, so I ordered it on the UK site and had it delivered to a relative in the UK who will bring it over with him when he visits...

I would hate it if she couldn't download any material?? Do you think we'll be OK??


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

lynn said:


> I would hate it if she couldn't download any material?? Do you think we'll be OK??


One way or another you'll be able to download material and buy books from one of the Amazon sites (as well as from other sites that have the proper format e-books available). 
Cheers,
Bev


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

Bevdeforges said:


> This change is just recent - and apparently it's controlled by the "delivery address" you have registered for your account with the UK branch of Amazon. (I have an account that covers at least three Amazon sites, but the delivery address is the same as the billing address of my credit cards - i.e. here in France.)
> 
> I know of folks who report no problem simply changing their "delivery address" on their Amazon.co.uk account to any valid address in the UK and then they can buy and download Kindle books with no problem. They then change their account address when they buy something that needs to be delivered to wherever they actually are. A few have been asked to "validate" their address after changing it a certain number of times.


My delivery place is the UK, but I bought it in Spain so thats why I waent to .com.
I know of people who have been on .uk and then been changed by Amazon when they realised that downloads were always made abroad.

I researched this quite a lot, and theres even a kindle forum where its been discussed


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

lynn said:


> This is a very interesting thread. I've just ordered a kindle for my daughter for Christmas. I didn't want to pay for one from the states, as it is more expensive, and anyway, they said they couldn't deliver by Christmas, so I ordered it on the UK site and had it delivered to a relative in the UK who will bring it over with him when he visits...
> 
> I would hate it if she couldn't download any material?? Do you think we'll be OK??



Yes, as I said I have researched this at length. Your kindle is already registered by amazon and if you log onto your account you will find "my kindle" which shows you where you are registered to.

I'm guessing we will download a load of stuff in the UK over Christmas ... my only worry from what Ive read is that Amazon may swap us to dot come (as has happened recently to people) as soon as they realise we are constantly downloading from abroad. She will still be able to download, its just a lot of stuff off amazon states that it is not available to non UK residents, and some stuff on the US site is slightly more expensive


Edit: I bought on the UK site and still got registered to dot com ... you need to change it if this has happened to you


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## IanMoore (Feb 23, 2011)

*e-reader books in Spain*



Trish1 said:


> I bought a Sony e-reader about a year ago and downloaded books from Waterstones. Recently Waterstones have told me that they will no longer send e-books to an address outside the UK I challenged this but no joy.
> WH Smith will send outside UK if you pay with a CC registered to an address in UK Has anyone else had a problem with this reader?


Hi, My brother in law recently had this problem and we did some research only to find out that WH Smiths and Waterstones do not sell English E-Books if they detect a Spanish IP address! So what we do now is I buy the e-books for him in the UK from my address here (not moved to Spain just yet, still a holiday home) and I e-mail the e-book to him. Of course you have to take off the DRM encryption first for this to work, I see this as no different to me Buying any book (traditional) here and then giving it to my brother in law after I have read it! It would make an interesting legal case I think, but I don't see how they could argue that I am doing anything different to what can be done with paper!

Regards
Terry


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## ivorra (Sep 24, 2008)

Thank you for the info. In the six months since I have owned my Kindle it has become indispensable to me. At last I can read books again without wearing my reading glasses (just need to set the font size large enough) and it is so convenient to carry when on the move. So far I have had no trouble accessing titles on Amazon.co.uk and now I know not to tamper with the delivery address on my account!


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

IanMoore said:


> Hi, My brother in law recently had this problem and we did some research only to find out that WH Smiths and Waterstones do not sell English E-Books if they detect a Spanish IP address! So what we do now is I buy the e-books for him in the UK from my address here (not moved to Spain just yet, still a holiday home) and I e-mail the e-book to him. Of course you have to take off the DRM encryption first for this to work, I see this as no different to me Buying any book (traditional) here and then giving it to my brother in law after I have read it! It would make an interesting legal case I think, but I don't see how they could argue that I am doing anything different to what can be done with paper!
> 
> Regards
> Terry


The Sony reader is a different issue than the Kindle. AFAIK, removing DRM may well be illegal in the UK, but so far the publishers have shown little interest in pursuing this. (Doesn't mean they won't do so one of these days.)

There's always a VPN, and there are some e-bookshops that will sell to us "furriners" though they do respect the geographical restrictions and show you a different list of available books for sale depending on where you live. These online shops tend to do this according to the billing address on your credit card rather than using your IP address.
Cheers,
Bev


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## IanMoore (Feb 23, 2011)

Bevdeforges said:


> The Sony reader is a different issue than the Kindle. AFAIK, removing DRM may well be illegal in the UK, but so far the publishers have shown little interest in pursuing this. (Doesn't mean they won't do so one of these days.)
> 
> There's always a VPN, and there are some e-bookshops that will sell to us "furriners" though they do respect the geographical restrictions and show you a different list of available books for sale depending on where you live. These online shops tend to do this according to the billing address on your credit card rather than using your IP address.
> Cheers,
> Bev


Thanks for the heads up, never considered using a VPN, might try that next week when we will be in Spain for a week. However, at the moment removing the DRM works for us.
Cheers


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## bob_bob (Jan 5, 2011)

Project Gutenberg has been mentioned for free ebooks, also try the University of Virginia and of Adalaide who have wonderful collections of classic works which feed my history bug.


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