To: Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com
Drop Amazon's Digital Borders & Support Language Learning
Amazon currently prevents users in the U.S. from buying digital foreign language texts and MP3 albums that it already sells in native-speaking countries. Withholding digital products from the global marketplace in this way is old-school and backwards, and at best leads to digital piracy. Amazon has the power and scale to change this, and they should do so by requiring (or at least actively encouraging) publishers to sell their Kindle and MP3 products globally.
Why is this important?
As a former foreign-language teacher and a bi-lingual citizen, I have trouble finding a good selection of music and eBooks to keep up my fluency. I think that this lack of access to culturally relevant products prevents U.S. students from becoming truly interested in learning about other languages and cultures. I can browse Amazon's web-site for other countries and see lots of interesting choices, but they won't allow me to buy these products.
Think about it- I want to give them money for a digital copy of an existing product, but they won't take it! What kid of business model is that?
Meanwhile, corporate America wonders why our students aren't linguistically diverse....
Think about it- I want to give them money for a digital copy of an existing product, but they won't take it! What kid of business model is that?
Meanwhile, corporate America wonders why our students aren't linguistically diverse....