e-books europa, grenzen

Ebooks shouldn't be restricted by European borders
Why have ebooks if not to access them in an instant? Europe needs a digital single market for its ebook industry
Europe, including the UK, would have a growing economy today if we had a real digital single market. Just look at the ebooks market. While ebooks are booming around the world, Europe is shooting itself in the foot. Our fledgling ebooks market is fragmented along national lines and struggles to make up 1% of the total books market, though at least the UK gives us hope by reaching 15%.
In the United States, where ebooks are 31% of the market, print isn't dying. More people are reading more books than ever before. They also make books social by interacting with texts and sharing their favourite parts.
By failing to ride this wave authors lose millions and consumers lack choice. Publishers kill income streams. At a time when the mantra of leaders is "jobs, jobs, jobs" we are waving goodbye to all the jobs a healthy ebooks ecosystem generates.
But the ebooks industry is waking up. Earlier this week in Brussels a "books without borders" declaration was created. The signatories endorsed the principle that there should be no barriers for consumers to acquire ebooks across borders of territories, of platforms or of devices. They agree that we need a neutral VAT regime for books.
Now it's time to turn those nice words into action. The point of the EU is to get rid of borders, and nothing is more ridiculous than stopping an ebook at a border. Why have ebooks if not to access them in an instant: any time, anywhere, to any device.
It makes sense. When you buy a printed book it's yours to take where you like. It should be the same with an ebook. Of course, there are already apps that will handle ebook files from all major platforms. Amazon Kindle apps do this. But what if you want to take your Amazon purchases elsewhere? What if you want to open other files in your Amazon app? That's the sort of functionality we need to enable.
The problem is not technology itself. Problems such as interoperability between different ebook readers have been solved in other areas. You can now open a document on different computers, so why not an ebook on different platforms and in different apps? It's time for open standards here.
The problem is not copyright restrictions. Most authors do not divide up digital publishing rights by territory. So you should be able to buy an ebook from a website based in another EU country. It is ridiculous that today people end up lying about where they live to cheat the system, or are forced to buy from the US. Piracy is fostered by this impossibility to buy legally.
So these issues must be addressed by the industry. For its part, government can fix the ebook tax fiasco. In the UK, why should the government charge no VAT on printed book sales and charge the highest VAT rate (20%) on ebook sales? Principles of logic and fairness cannot explain this. Whatever the tax rate applied in a given country, a book is a book. All books should be taxed equally.
The future is what we make it. Let's do justice to the extraordinary history and reputation of European publishing. Books change lives and open minds. It's time we applied that openness to the ebook industry too.
Neelie Kroes at guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 June 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/28/ebooks-restricted-european-borders
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