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I'm a liar

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I DON'T like paper. Never have. It clutters up my desk and hippies are constantly bothering me about recycling the stuff. I avoid paper as far as possible, to the degree that I won't even read a book any more unless I can get hold of it in digital form.

I'm also a liar.

I can't get hold of digital books without lying. I also can't buy music the way I'd prefer to, or watch television legally without telling fibs. So I do.

As a South African you have to be a liar if you plan on actually paying for digital content. The only other option is to pirate the goods, in which case nobody cares where you're from and you can exchange lying for thievery.

Apple will not allow South Africans to purchase from its iTunes store that sells music, television shows and movies in downloadable form.

Don't blame Apple and Amazon

Amazon limits its list of Kindle electronic books to those that are licensed for South Africa - vastly less than what is available in the United States. Audible, the single best place on the planet to get hold of audio books, has a dusty virtual rack with a handful of rubbish books that you are confined to as a South African, while Americans enjoy an extensive catalogue that includes the New York Times bestseller list.

But it wouldn't be fair to blame the likes of Apple, Amazon and Audible for making it necessary to lie and steal.

The real enemy is a group of short-sighted publishing types whose plan to make as much money as possible at the expense of both artists and consumers is backfiring - because they honestly don't understand that bigger markets lead to bigger profits. And yet somehow they managed to graduate from business school.

The reason Apple and co can't provide their services to you is not because they're anti-South African, but because they can't be bothered to wrestle with the legion of grey-suited individuals who handle content licensing.

Little grey men with little grey matter

If Amazon wanted to provide a more extensive list of digital books to South Africans, it would have to first engage in a long and tedious round of negotiation with publishing companies which are scared of children in a Scandinavian country stealing their stuff.

By way of the most convoluted bout of reasoning in human history, these firms have decided that the way to tackle the problem of piracy is by stopping anyone outside a few selected countries from legally paying for digital content.

What these publishers fail to understand is that piracy is largely bred out of necessity.

If you've made it impossible for me to give you my money, I can only surmise that you don't want the cash. Which leaves me with two choices: pirate the goods or lie about my location.

Since lying is questionable while theft is plain illegal, I opt for fibbing about my location so that I can actually pay these morons with money they seemingly don't want.

And until they wake up to the power of a market that extends outside the USA and Europe, I'll have to carry on lying.

- Fin24.com

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