Quote:
Originally Posted by seagull
What I don't get is why there are geographical restrictions in the first place. I know that different publishers have rights in different areas but with hardcopies you can still import them from another country. The only differences (that I can see) with eBooks is the reduced delivery time and postage.
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The difference is where the sale is "deemed" to have occurred. When a physical book is shipped, the sale happens in the store (or its warehouse). When an ebook is purchased the sale happens in your PC. There isn't a reliable way to tell where you are when you buy an ebook, so the publishers require the retailers to use a proxy like where your credit card is holmed. There have been some recent cases in the UK that suggest that web sales might indeed occur in the host web server (at least for streaming and interactive media). I don't know what case law supports the "sale at the customers location" for data sales, it might just be that big publishers decided that was the interpretation they wanted.