Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormchild
@BearMountainBooks
No, you miss the point of my question. If as ProfCrash insists, there is a LAW that prevents selling electronic goods across borders how can Smashwords operate. I doubt there is such a law.
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The law prevents selling books where one doesn't have the rights to distribute them. Some publishers (the agency 6, especially) buy limited distribution rights, or parcel out those rights to different locations.
The law in question is what counts as "selling in a particular location," not "selling across borders." Smashwords demands the rights to sell anywhere. HarperCollins may only directly have the right to sell in the US, and not the UK... the issue is what counts as a "sale in the UK," since Amazon's servers are in the US.
The buyer's computer may be in the UK, in which case, if the law defines the sale as happening at his computer, HC can't sell that book to him. OTOH, if the law defines the sale as happening at his computer, if he's vacationing at Disneyland, he should be able to buy that book.