Licences for Europe WG1: Cross border access and portability of services

The e-book sector: a publisher perspective

Nathalie Mosquet, Editis

European Commission, Brussels, March 1st, 2013

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Content
E-book sales process Cross-border access Examples Conclusions

Portability aspects

Selling an e-book : Architecture

Author

Worldwide digital rights by language

Publisher

Digital files

Distribution platform

Digital files

Retailer

e-book

Consumer

Selling an e-book : Establishing cross-border

access within Europe
The publisher acquires rights for a book in a given language for all territories The publisher has a selling contract with the retailer, setting selling conditions within the European territory

The publisher sends country codes in e-book metadata These are the actual countries where the book can be sold by the retailer It allows to deal with limitations for the few cases in which they may exist (e.g. when rights are split between different publishers)
The retailer sells from one store all over Europe, or on localised stores (opening of these stores being their decision), or redirects customer to a "semi-global" store

Selling an e-book : Global retailers local stores policies

Amazon 5 local stores (DE, GB, ES, IT, FR) Redirection of customers outside these countries to one of the existing stores with same language, or to a section within Amazon.com dedicated to European content, where e-books are paid in USD Apple 11 local stores (DE, GB, ES, IT, FR, NL, PT, AT, SE, DK, CH) Redirection of customers outside these countries toward semiglobal store, where e-books are paid in Euros Kobo 7 local stores (DE, GB, ES, IT, FR, NL, PT) Google 5 local stores (DE, GB, ES, IT, FR)

Example-1

The e-book "Dans Mes Yeux" by Amanda Sthers (singer Johnny Hallidays life), published in French by French publisher Plon (Editis Group)

Experience by a Belgian reader via the Filigranes

bookshop website

Experience by a British reader on Amazon.co.uk

Experience on other Amazon local stores (FR, DE, ES, IT)

Experience on semi-global Amazon.com

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Experience on Apple stores : local stores, Euro area

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Experience on Apple stores : local stores, outside the Euro area

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Experience on Apple stores : semi-global store, in euros

Non Euro-area countries

Euro-area countries

Bulgaria

Belgium

Luxembourg Malta Slovenia

Czech Republic
Hungary

Cyprus
Estonia

Latvia
Lithuania

Finland
Ireland

Poland

Greece
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Example-2

The e-book "Speaker Of Mandarin" by Ruth Rendell, published in English by British publisher Random House

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Experience by a Portuguese reader via the

Bertrand bookshop website

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Example-3

The e-book "Diary Of A Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney, published in English by British publisher Penguin Books

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Experience by a Czech reader via the Czech

online bookseller Shakespeare and Sons

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Conclusions on cross-border accessibility

In most cases, an e-book is accessible in any given European country through several digital outlets, from both local and global retailers
Which outlet(s) are actually displaying and selling an e-book depends on retailers own policies (and capabilities) in opening and maintaining local stores, with a display in local language and local currency

If not local, some retailers use semi-global stores which do not have the local touch but still allow for purchase for any European citizen Therefore, at this moment in time, we do not see any structural cross-border accessibility issue Difficulties must be considered as mainly incidental and, in some cases, can be solved between distributor and publisher if signalled
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Portability : for publishers, its all about formats

For publishers, portability means cross-device portability, i.e. ensuring that a customer can
read his/her e-book on all the devices he/she owns: PC, e-reader, tablet, cellphone. With that in mind, publishers strive to make their e-books available in universal formats:

The long well known PDF, still used for complex documents, and /or
The more user friendly EPUB format: reflowable, well adapted to reading devices with different screen sizes

specified by the international consortium IDPF* where industry players work

together to ensure full interoperability Some retailers have chosen to develop their own proprietary format - they therefore do not

allow standard ePub or pdf files to be sold within their ecosystem

Cross-border portability of downloaded content is ensured by nature. Other portability aspects are mainly in retailers hands
* International Digital Publishing Forum
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