Your search for ebook vat tax got 55 results

Ask any tax collector anywhere and they’ll tell you that too many people  and too many companies cheat on their taxes, and Japan is no exception.

The Yomuri Shimbun reported yesterday that the Japanese Finance Ministry is continuing to look for ways to collect taxes on ebooks sold to Japanese consumers from ebookstores in other countries.

While some ebookstores like iBooks or the Sony Reader Store operate locally in Japan and collect the the required 5% consumption tax, others skirt the issue by keeping their servers and main operations in other countries.

This naturally leads to complaints made by Japanese companies of an un-level playing field, and the Finance Ministry is searching for ways to collect the taxes that are due on imported digital content. They have in fact been researching this issue for well over a year now, with little visible progress. The Asahi Shimbun and others reported on a similar story back in June 2012:

The Finance Ministry plans to impose a consumption tax on electronic books sold in Japan by foreign companies such as Amazon.com Inc., sources said on June 28.

Officials want to impose the levy, which could be introduced as early as 2014, to stop overseas e-book sellers from gaining a competitive advantage against Japanese rivals that have to pay a consumption tax. The fear is that a failure to act would force Japanese companies to relocate abroad to ensure a level playing field.

That fear has been realized in the past 20 months; as you might recall Kobo launched their ebookstore in Japan last Summer but arranged things so that the ebooks were technically sold via Kobo’s Canadian operations.

And Amazon has pulled a similar trick in Japan and elsewhere. While they do have an ebookstore at Amazon.co.jp, Amazon still sells ebooks to the Japanese market from the US-based Amazon.com (no taxes collected). They’re also avoiding collecting taxes on ebooks in Australia and other markets, including Europe where Amazon collects the 3% VAT required by Luxembourg rather than the 15% to 20% VAT required in other EU member states.

While none of this is illegal it certainly isn’t making any new friends for Amazon.

At this point no one really knows the volume of sales of grey market ebooks in Japan, but the most recent estimate indicated that the domestic Japanese ebook market had grown by 16% between 2011 and 2012 and was worth around 72 billion yen in 2012. That converts to about $750 million USD.

Optimistic estimates predict that the Japanese ebook market will triple in the next 4 years, but given the small growth reported in 2012 I am not sure I find it plausible.

The Yomuri Shimbun

image by Steve Nagata

Calibre is a widely used ebook library tool that can convert ebooks to and from just about any format and help you load said ebook on to just about any device. One of its lesser known features is the ability to act as a content server either on a local network or on the web.

I’ve tested using calibre as an online content server a few times, but I never left it running because I didn’t want to find out the hard way that a hacker could exploit calibre and gain access to the rest of my files on my system. But according to one computer security expert, around 1,800 other people aren’t as cautious.

I love reading, and I especially like my e-readers. They allow you to carry and travel with hundreds of books. Calibre is an open source e-book management application, and probably one of the most popular. It’s capable of running a server to allow remote users to browse and download books. Knowing this and being a pentester by trade, I became quite curious if there was any notable presence of Calibre on the internet.   In it’s default configuration, Calibre does not require any authentication to access the web interface. Using Shodan.io, we can search for the keyword Calibre in the server HTTP header.

They did indeed find calibre content servers running on the open web; according to the results page on Shodan, there are around 1,863 instances running right now. (I say "around" because some results are false positives.)

We can see all sorts of interesting details from the Shodan results. For examples, the IP addresses for these content servers are concentrated in the biggest ebook markets (US, UK, Germany, France), and the most commonly used OSes were Windows 7, Windows 8, and a really old version of Windows 7.

Or so the results suggest; most of the data is behind a paywall.

One thing I did notice is that a number of the calibre content servers that I could access were completely open. They didn’t require a password or any other type of authentication. (Other content servers did require you to know the password.) A number of the unprotected content servers had copies of copyrighted ebooks, making them de facto pirate servers (essentially mini Internet Archives).

To be clear, these open content servers are not easy to find – you have to know a little about the web and know about Shodan or you may never find them. But once you learn those two nuggets of info you will have access to a large and illicit library of ebooks.

My source noted that they could identify over 10,000 titles from the server manifests alone:

Of the original 1,800 or so servers from Shodan, we were able to download the manifest file from 225 Calibre servers. Note this doesn’t include unauthenticated servers which don’t offer the manifest file. I didn’t write a crawler to parse individual titles and requesting potentially 100s of pages from a single host.

From the 225 Calibre servers, I was able to identify about 10,000 unique titles. Some interesting observations:

• Ironically, there’s a number of "cybersecurity" titles.
• I tried searching through the titles for sensitive documents such as "receipt" or "invoice" or "tax". Nothing.
• Unsurprisingly given world demographics, a large number of titles are not English. This might have hamstringed my manual analysis.

If you are running a calibre content server, you might want to check the security just in case.

image by rahego via Flickr

Everyone is up in arms over the news that the Pennsylvania  Dept of Corrections (its prison system) has banned prisoners from receiving book donations. Instead they will have to buy ebooks from the approved vendor using approved tablets, or get their books through the prison library.

From The Incline:

The Department of Corrections has instituted a number of new policies regarding how people at its facilities can access mail and books in response to “numerous instances of staff and inmate exposure to suspicious substances” this year. Officials say synthetic drugs including K2 have been introduced into prisons through paper.

 An update published on DOC’s website this week states in part:

Effective immediately, the DOC will begin to transition to ebooks coupled with bolstered DOC library system featuring centralized purchasing and ordering process. No books or publications will be shipped directly to an inmate.

In an FAQ published online Thursday, the department said it “will no longer accept books donated directly to individual inmates.” A spokesperson said the DOC is “looking at ways to incorporate donated books into the libraries.”

Incarcerated persons will be able to purchase physical books through the DOC and download more than 8,500 e-books to tablets purchased through the prison system by the end of the month, per the FAQ. Tablets cost $147 plus tax. A DOC spokesperson said “the cheapest ebooks are $2.99 right now. We are looking at ways to obtain free ebooks.”

“Remember, we can’t stress this enough, books/mail are really the leading way drugs get into the system. With synthetic drugs in odorless, liquid form, applied to paper, they are virtually impossible to be detected,” the spokesperson continued. “Eliminating incoming paper products, whether mail or books, is essential to shutting down the drug flow.”

A lot of people are pissed about this. I would feel the same way except this story reminded me that Ohio enacted a similar policy in its prisons back in February. Prisoners at several state prisons were no longer allowed to receive used books; instead, they could only get new books from approved retailers.

So this just fucking happened in Ohio pic.twitter.com/SR1kIbJBJY

— disposable tran (@Anarchy_Dog) February 17, 2018

2) Previously, nonprofit publishers and small businesses were able to send materials, as opposed to having the list including only major outlets.

— disposable tran (@Anarchy_Dog) February 17, 2018

The two state prison systems are reacting to the same problem with similar bans, only the Penn ban goes a step further.

While this is aggravating it is far from the nefarious plot that Boing Boing framed it as.

Do you know how companies sometimes like to buy editorials that support their position (I see this a lot in the WSJ), or even go so far as to fund think tanks to produce position papers to order?

I think Forbes just gave us another example. A coupel days ago Forbes published an editorial that subtly reinforces Macmillan’s current anti-library policy.

Amazon should open their own bookstores in all local communities. They can replace local libraries and save taxpayers lots of money, while enhancing the value of their stock.

There was a time local libraries offered the local community lots of services in exchange for their tax money. They would bring books, magazines, and journals to the masses through a borrowing system. Residents could borrow any book they wanted, read it, and return it for someone else to read.

They also provided residents with a comfortable place they could enjoy their books. They provided people with a place they could do their research in peace with the help of friendly librarians. Libraries served as a place where residents could hold their community events, but this was a function they shared with school auditoriums. There’s no shortage of places to hold community events.

Libraries slowly began to service the local community more. Libraries introduced video rentals and free internet access. The modern local library still provides these services, but they don’t have the same value they used to. The reasons why are obvious.

This piece was written by a professor of economics, and it is so lacking in facts or any real connection to reality that the writer gives other ivory tower intellectuals a bad name.

Edit: This piece was so bad that Forbes actually deleted the article.

There is literally not a single sentence in this piece that stands up to scrutiny. Not only has the writer never used a library, he is equally unacquainted with Amazon Books – a cursory visit would reveal it cannot provide half the services we get from libraries.

And that is just the beginning of the ignorant nonsense he spouted.

Here are my favorites:

•  There’s no shortage of places to hold community events – says the guy who has never tried to organize one. I have a Meetup group that is on hiatus because it is so hard to find meeting spaces; if not for libraries, we would not meet at all.
• streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have replaced video rentals – but they only work in the about half of the country that has fast internet. And guess what? People who live in rich parts of the country still have slow internet; until I got service through Comcast, I had Verizon DSL. It was barely capable of streaming one SD video at a time, and only if you stopped all other web activity.
• streaming services (cont’d) – Furthermore, streaming services are great if you can afford to pay for all of the upgrades to get all of the content. I can’t even afford to do that; can you?
• streaming services (cont’d) – Another problem with streaming services that the Forbes writer didn’t mention is that the services are great right up until a studio decides to pull its content. You can’t watch what isn’t there, but you can borrow DVDs from the library (hat tip to Michael Carusi for making this point on Twitter).
• Technology has turned physical books into collector’s items, effectively eliminating the need for library borrowing services – for rich people like the Forbes writer who can afford to collect them, this is true. It is not true for the rest of us.
• Amazon have created their own online library that has made it easy for the masses to access both physical and digital copies of books – Again, if you can afford it. Sadly, many of us are not as rich as the Forbes writer.
• Amazon Go basically combines a library with a Starbucks – no – just no. (If I had allowed myself to become emotionally involved, this is where I would be gibbering in anger.)

And finally:

The problem with market "solutions" to public services is that it conveniently ignores the realities of market economics. There are many places that do not have bookstores because the local market will not support one. Many of those places do have libraries, however.

Furthermore, the other problem with so-called market solutions is that it frequently makes sense for a business to ignore, say, 90% of a market and instead concentrate on the 10% that is profitable.

Edit: I can phrase that better.

The other problem with so-called market solutions is that they depend on businesses that are motivated by profit rather than serving the public good. If it makes sense for a business to ignore, say, 90% of a market and instead concentrate on the 10% that is profitable, then the company will do so.

I should not have to point this out to a professor of economics, but a market solution to a public program that ignores 90% of the public is by definition not a solution, but that is academia for you.

Anyone who thinks that Amazon Books can replace a library is just as wrong as the fools who argued in 2013 that libraries could be replaced by Kindle Unlimited.

My local library serves a population of 463 thousand at a cost of $37 per resident in FY2017. It used those funds to:

• give 92 thousand people internet access,
• answer over 600 thousand questions,
• loan 3.6 million books, media, and other item, and
• host 5,152 special events and programs where 186,273 attended.

That is only a tithe of what my local library does. I have left out at least a dozen other services, none of which I could get from an Amazon Books store.

image by holisticmonkey via Flickr

Launched into a closed beta last summer, KDP Print is Amazon’s solution to all the indie authors that release ebooks but not print editions. It is a more limited version of Amazon’s POD service, Createspace, and it’s missing a lot of features.

Until today, one option it lacked was a way for authors to order copies of their POD books in wholesale volume. According to a number of reports on KBoards, Amazon has sent an email to authors announcing the new feature:

We have made updates to your account that allow you to order proofs and author (wholesale) copies of your paperbacks on KDP.

Proofs allow you to review a physical copy of your draft paperback prior to publication. Learn more here.
Author copies are copies of the live version of your paperback that you can order from Amazon. Learn more here.

When you order copies of your own book, you pay just the printing costs plus shipping and applicable taxes. Unlike CreateSpace, KDP proof and author copies for the UK and the rest of Europe are printed and shipped from within Europe.

By publishing a paperback on KDP, you can reach more readers through Amazon websites in the US and Europe, as well as manage your print and eBook publishing from one website. In addition, you can use the KDP website in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese or Dutch.

An order of around 50 copies costs an average of $3 or so per book. In comparison, Ingram Spark would charge you about the same, and Blurb would charge about 50% more for author copies.

The value of print copies is that authors can sell them directly to the public at events. While everyone is familiar with selling at book fairs and cons, I was at a writer’s club meeting in Richmond a few weeks back where I met an author who sold most of her books at craft fairs.

There was a market out there for print, and she found it.

image by innovate360

eBook gift cards have been tried a half-dozen times in the past ten years, including as a way to sell digital textbooks, Christian books (Zondervan), and novels (in US Target stores).

Aside from one effort in Canada and a quietly successful platform in Germany, the idea has not had much success.

And now Amazon is giving it a try.

There’s been no formal announcement from Amazon, but late last month the Seattle-area drug store chain Bartell Drugs revealed that it is carrying Kindle gift cards in its stores.

Amazon has confirmed the news on a help page on the Amazon website, writing "Kindle Cards are Amazon.com Gift Cards that depict popular Kindle books and Kindle Unlimited subscriptions in the form of a physical card, which can be gifted to friends or family members or applied to your own account. Included on each Kindle Card is a description of the Kindle book or Kindle Unlimited subscription, and instructions for redeeming the book or subscription to the desired account once the card has been activated at the store register."

Unlike regular gift cards, Kindle Cards are tied to specific titles, but Amazon isn’t going to hold you to the sale. If someone gives you a card for a book you don’t want, Amazon will let you trade it in for a regular Amazon.com credit. Similarly, if the price of the ebook drops below the price listed on the card, Amazon will give you a credit for the difference (less applicable taxes, of course).

You can find more information on Amazon.

Update: Amazon told me that the pilot is running in 61 Bartell Drug stores, and includes 20 Kindle titles and 4 Kindle Unlimited card designs. Bartell informed me that the pilot started in October 2015, and that Amazon selected the twenty titles in the pilot based on their best-selling titles for gifting.

Update: Working from my tip, Geekwire found the display in a store:

From Geekwire:

The top row of the kiosk features cards for three- and six-month Kindle Unlimited memberships, for $29.99 and $49.99 each. Below those are cards featuring the covers of 20 individual ebooks, best-sellers across both fiction and nonfiction, ranging from “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” to Dan Brown’s “Inferno” and “The Martian” by Andy Weir.

On the back of each ebook card is a quote from an Amazon customer review and a summary of the book, along with an area for writing a message to the recipient and instructions for redeeming the book by scratching off the claim code and going to a dedicated Amazon url to enter it.

Purchasing the card at the Bartell Drugs register automatically activates it for use, as with a standard gift card.

I also know considerably more about the competition.

Livrada, for example, launched a similar pilot in Target stores in 2012. That effort included only a half-dozen titles, and went nowhere.

But up in Canada, Enthrill is having more luck. This Calgary-based startup launched a similar product in Canadian Safeway stores in 2012, and over the past three years they have expanded ebook gift cards into over 3000 locations in Canada, including Sears, Toys R Us, Safeway, Shoppers Drug Mart, Giant Tiger, Home Outfitters, Home Hardware, and Longos.

Enthrill is also the vendor which supplies the Walmart-brand ebook gift cards in Canada and runs Walmart’s ebookstore. That program launched in November 2014.

I have no info on when Enthrill or Walmart plan to expand their programs into the US, but now that Amazon is interested I can guarantee that publishers and retailers will be taking notice.