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Comment by kenny_r | Hacker News Reader

Very saddened by this:

  We're sorry. Kindle Unlimited is currently only available for US customers.
  Please visit us again when it is available in your country.

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I still don't understand why, when content is digital and distribution doesn't cost anything extra, things like this are restricted to specific countries.

It's legal, not technical restrictions.

It's not even laws, it's just contracts. Which, if parties were motivated, could be rewritten.

"Please visit us again when it is available in your country." makes it sound like they are motivated to rewrite them. But you can't just rewrite everything at once. I understand the frustration that people outside the US feel when a new service is launched as US-only first but you have to start somewhere. And a US-based company is most likely to start at home and then branch out.

I was pretty bummed when Spotify was Europe-first.

Motivation to rewrite is often tied to money. No money? No motivation.

Which is why some people in "remote places" don't really have many qualms about piracy. If it's not available at any price, what _should_ I do??

Laws.

Specifically which?

I'd imagine they don't have the copyright to distribute things in this manner outside the US at the moment.

Depends on country. Laws for selling books can actually get quite complicated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_book_price_agreement)

I am really sorry people downvote you. People please don't downvote for mere disagreement; not upvoting is enough. You are actively discouraging otherwise completely legitimate and sensible questions.

This isn't Reddit. It is perfectly acceptable to downvote out of disagreement, as pg has stated before.

Contracts.

See this explanation by author Charlie Stross: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/07/some-ram...

But amazon have no problem selling me ebooks and audiobooks even thou in am located outside the us.

Sure, because those books have rights to be sold in your geo. OR, your account is based in the US (billing address).

I think the OP's point is some subset of the Kindle ebooks are already available in his locale, so why not roll-out this service for those titles?

Probably because the license they have to sell those titles doesn't allow them to rent them on this service.

My billing address is Danish so that is not it.

I have not yet been declined the opportunity to buy a ebook so it's strange that the rules for renting is different.

That's because they made deals with content providers to sell you ebooks and audiobooks outside the US, and presumably they don't have those deals for Kindle Unlimited yet. Just because Amazon has the publisher's permission to sell you an ebook doesn't mean that they automatically have the publisher's permission to give that ebook to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

cstross elaborated on it recently.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/07/some-ram...

HN thread for that article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7998604.

Content licensing. Different companies (or legally distinct subsidiaries) control licensing & distribution for different countries. Inherent limits of physical books (i.e.: space & mass & energy needed to haul content across significant distances) mitigated the issue, as it's usually cheaper to get a book locally than ship it from afar. Now that content can, for most practical purposes, be shipped free with instant delivery the legal ownership rights are being enforced and controlled (and more middlemen squeezing into). Amazon will get around to sorting out licensing issues elsewhere, but 'til then they've got a big local market to satiate.

They want you to pirate so they can later sue you. More profitable biz mod than making something useful

I live in France but it worked right away. I still have an old address in the US on my amazon account from when I studied there which might explain why it works.

My credit card's billing address is in France though so I think they're really just trying to make it as easy as possible to sign up while still respecting the letter of the contracts they signed.

I just changed my address to a US one and I was allowed to sign up straight away.

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