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As I understand it...Publisher A pays the author money for the exclusive right to publish the book in the US. Publisher B pays the author money for the exclusive right to publish the book in France. [...]
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Publisher B in France may have acquired the rights for a printed version but not necessarily for an eBook version as well, so maybe B may not even be to blame.
Geographic restrictions might make some kind of sense if we're talking about several countries sharing the same basic language. English=USA, GB, Canada, Australia, ...
If Publisher C, D, E also paid for the ebook rights they like to have the exclusive right to distribute their eBook in their region. Understandable.
BUT
if we're talking about countries with different languages this concept doesn't make any sense. No French publisher acquires the rights for an English version in France. No German publisher acquires the rights for an English version in Germany.
So if I'm French or German and I want to buy and read the English version, those publishers neither a) do hold any rights to the original version nor b) will lose one cent if I decide to buy the English version on Amazon.com. Since they won't ever offer the original version at all.
Either I never consider buying a translated version at all - no money lost - or I would even consider buying one after reading the original - money made.
Geographic restrictions are downright nonsense if they are implied on foreign-language countries.