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Reading the posts since Ingmar's I think there has been a lot of misunderstandings. An almost throwaway line by Ingmar in the context of a thread discussing copyright law has suddenly been taken to an absurd extreme and ridiculed with talk of drugs, slavery and, of course, child pornography. Laws such as Ingmar suggested have precedent. Year ago, one Australian review of parallel import legislation for books failed to recommend abolition but tried to deal with availability by allowing book selling businesses to import books from anywhere in certain circumstances where the Australian rights-holders were not willing or able to supply. A ridiculous solution, of course. But I'm sure it is not beyond legislator's to come up with a form of words that allows access to books not sold in their region without extending the privilege to child porn etc.
I don't think any reasonable person would seek to deny an author the right not to publish. However, as I have made quite plain in other posts, the reality is that the internet has in effect created one world wide market, despite the continuing attempts to artificially divide that market geographically. Governments of course do hate this, since it poses significant problems for Governments seeking control over what is available to their citizens. An author should have the right not to publish a work at all. However, an author should not have the right to limit publication only to certain geographic areas. And yes, an author may have the right to withdraw a work from sale completely. But not only from a particular region or for that matter only from a particular person or group.
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