[darryl]

Thanks for your last post (#84) Harry. Even though we often disagree, I do usually enjoy your contributions and find them worthwhile.

In relation to your first response, I don't think it suggests so much that people are happy with the system as that they are living with it. I suppose you could say that they are happy with it in the sense that they are able to work around it or even resort to obtaining a pirate copy on the odd occasion where it does not adequately cater for their wants.

You are quite right that my statement in post #30 which you quote can be construed as seemingly contradictory, but only seemingly so. Your comment is that:

"which suggests that you believe that large-scale piracy is happening. Publishers would seem, therefore, to be far from "paranoid" if they believe that "readers are dishonest and not to be trusted".

However, the context is that of impoverished people in undeveloped and developing nations, who are relied upon by some to justify geographic restrictions. My point is that these people are not in fact catered for by Publishers with prices low enough for them to afford. Publishers in fact appear only to cater for the more affluent middle classes in these countries. If the truly impoverished in these nations wish to read they have little option but piracy. For you to class these people as dishonest and not to be trusted is certainly not indefensible, but in the context is probably neither appropriate nor relevant. Yes, large scale piracy may well be occurring amongst this class of people. But the publishers are losing nothing from it. It is a market that they are not interested in, for the practical and logical reason that they could not make a profit from it. Untouchables living in a rubbish tip and struggling to put food on the table have little or no money left to buy books (though, in true human fashion, some do apparently manage to obtain and operate cellphones). If a market segment that Publishers are not interested in catering to and don't do so for the perfectly practical reason that they would be unable to make a profit from that segment pirates their books, what does it matter to the publishers whether they are desperate or dishonest or both? This market segment is simply irrelevant to them.

So far as authors driving geographical restrictions, we simply disagree. But once again, it doesn't matter. The internet creates one market. You can enter into a contract based on the world being flat, but it does not make it so. I expect that the more ineffective geographic restrictions become the more difficult it will be for rights holders to sell geographically based rights. And, quite frankly, I see only one avenue that has any chance at all of bolstering geo-restrictions, and even that I do not expect to succeed. You will, I am sure, forgive me for not sharing that here