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Originally Posted by rogue_librarian
I am not, but I know of people who are not as patient. And I can't say that I particularly blame them. Even so it's a lost sale, and pissing off would-be customers is generally not considered good sales practice. But I digress.
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I don't blame them either. Confronted with a large enough incentive (a book I really
really wanted, that I'd be happy to pay for, but no one is allowed to sell it to me), so might I.
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All that it would take, really, is to apply home state regulation to the sale of digital goods as well. (Change a few laws if you must. A treaty if you feel adventurous.) Actually, there is one step prior to that: it needs to be considered an issue worth solving. I'm not sure we're quite there yet.
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I wish it were as simple as you make it sound. If it were, we would not be having this discussion. (How much fun is it to get a law
changed where you live? What's involved and how long does it take? I'm willing to bet the process is neither short nor simple.)
But meanwhile, there are things to keep in mind.
First, ebooks are a rapidly growing phenomenon, but they haven't taken over the market yet. They are still a minority of book sales.
Second, even among those who do buy ebooks, how many are really affected by this issue? Whether you are depends upon where you live. If you're in the US, for example, you can probably get most of what you want legally. Folks who live outside the US and want books issued by foreign publishers are the ones with problems. The people who
are badly bitten by this are a minority of the total ebook buying population.
Third, prophecies of gloom and doom for publishers because this problem exists and has not been instantly rectified are over-blown. Major publishers
aren't going to go belly up tomorrow because of lost sales due to geo-restrictions. They're too big, and the number of people adversely affected by this who have no recourse but the darknet is too small. There are lots of challenges facing major publishers that might put them out of business if not properly handled, but this is fairly low on the list.
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Dennis