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Unfortunately, it's a contractual problem.
Book publishing rights are still allocated geographically - i.e. a publisher buys the rights from the author to publish a book in a particular region, such as North America or Europe. The reason the publishers are up in arms is that if someone in the UK buys an ebook from Amazon.com.us, then the holder of the UK rights loses a sale.
In the days of print and small publishers, this made sense. A publisher in the US might not have the facilities to sell books overseas, so those rights would be sold to publishers in other countries.
But yes, the model is now broken.
Keep complaining. The only way it's going to get fixed is if enough people raise a big enough stink.
It's not the retailers' fault. There's not a retailer on Earth or the US (hah) who doesn't want to sell you things. That's how they make their livings, after all. So don't get mad at Waterstones or Amazon or whomever. But do complain to them so they can pass the complaints along. Just do so politely, please.
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