I’ll write more about this, but Amazon just announced their Kindle store in India:

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1727520&highlight=

That should help availability there.

I think the odds might be good that there may be other people who want to see that movie through your account at some point. Even decades from now, I think there will be people wanting to see that movie (even though the technology used to make it may seem quaint by then).

Have you considered a Roku?

Roku HD Streaming Player

That’s a great way to watch your Amazon Instant Video purchases on a TV…and it has a lot of other benefits, too.

Edited to add: I did want to say, it’s perfectly fine to disagree with me. My favorite comments are ones that respectfully disagree…that certainly gives me a chance to learn something (yes, I do change my mind sometimes), and allows others to see more sides of the discussion.

I don’t necessarily agree, but don’t think I could mount a comprehensible argument against your logic. LOL

Leftover from a previous discussion, I did end up purchasing Hunger Games in the instant video format despite my aversion to owning movies that way, since the night it was released, they were not yet offering the $3.99 rental, and I didn’t want to wait. I just have to watch it 3.5 times to make up for the $14 cost, which won’t be a problem. Trying to encourage my husband to look for rental options versus purchasing, because he tends to want to purchase things he really likes, but then watches it once. But he doesn’t really like watching full length stuff on the Kindle or computer.

When I first noticed a relatively high price like that for an older book published as an e-book, it surprised me. However, I checked the new (not used) paperback price for the same title…and it was even more. The only paperback available new was a trade paperback.

If the publisher still needs to pay a royalty, what significantly increases their profit with the book being older? The production, distribution, accounting, and customer service costs are probably roughly the same as a newer book. The marketing costs might be less.

If you mean that the initial investment has already been paid off…well, it doesn’t really work that way in entertainment, in my opinion. You don’t pay more at the movie theatre for a movie with a $100 million budget than you do for a movie with a $10 million dollar budget (excluding 3D and Imax, when you are really paying more to the movie theatre for their display costs, I believe).

We don’t say, “It took this author a year to write this book, during which they could have made $50,000 in another job. Therefore, once they make $50,000, the rest of it is profit.”

There is somewhat of an exception to this with some non-fiction…I think if a book was particularly difficult to produce, people are willing to pay more for it partially to acknowledge that.

It’s reasonable not to pay $9.99 for older books, just as it is reasonable to set a maximum price you’ll pay on any book (and we have so many free books available, paying for a book is always a choice). I’m not sure that there is a lot more profit for the publisher with a backlist title, though.

Yes, I absolutely agree: the best way to combat piracy is to make the book legally available to the people who want it. In this earlier post

http://ilmk.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/pirates-of-the-high-e-s/

I polled my readers about when piracy would be acceptable to them:

===
Under what circumstances would you consider book piracy acceptable?

Never 42.31%
If the book was otherwise unavailable in e-book form 30.77%
If the book had text-to-speech blocked 6.41%
If the price was too high 16.67%
Other: 3.85%
===

If the book is hundreds of years old, it is going to be in the public domain in both the USA and India, generally, although India treats posthumous works from the date of publication, I believe (I’m in no way an expert on Indian copyright).

If there is new material or a new translation, that can create a new copyright, and that might be a factor. For example, if there were new illustrations, that would do it. If a book was newly translated from Hindi to English, that would do it.

A publisher can also choose where to release books, even if the book itself is in the public domain.

As to it being legal to download a book from Project Gutenberg, you have to be a bit careful there. PG does not check your country of residence and method of payment…since there isn’t one of the latter. They leave it up to the downloader to determine the legality.

http://ilmk.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/whoops-are-you-an-accidental-pirate/

For example, the George Orwell books are not in the public domain in the USA. Due to a difference in copyright laws, they are in Australia. A resident of the USA could easily technically download 1984 from Project Gutenberg of Australia. On that site it says:

“Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file.”

If an American does download that book, they put Project Gutenberg at risk. The rightsholder could go after the site if they aren’t doing due diligence to protect the rights.

Do you have a specific title you could list for me? I’d be curious to investigate that a bit more…see if it has new material or is a new translation, for example.

It is really sad that I can download a book legally from gutenberg, but can’t purchase it in the Kindle store if I am an Indian resident, but can purchase the same book from kindle store if I am a US resident.

This is from the Copyright Office:

“Section 106
of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive
right to do and to authorize others to do the following:
• reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords”

I suppose an argument could be made that the remedy for the unauthorized copying may be a monetary one and therefore in that sense the rightsholder is “paid” for it.

You can see the remedies here:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.pdf

The rightsholder can go for damages and profit, but if they don’t, the minimum is $200 for unintentional infringement, and $750 for intentional. Intentional infringement can go up to $150,000 for each count. It’s more complicated than that, but those are a few of the key amounts.

If true, that solves the problem, except for the detail of how MUCH an author or publisher deserves to be paid for each unauthorized copy.