Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Can't be done. The copyright holder has the absolute right to grant the right to copy to whomsoever, and with whatever restrictions, they wish. If they decide to grant me the right to only sell their book to people called "Smith", then that is absolutely their right. It's completely irrelevant whether or not you, me, or anyone else agrees with their decision or thinks that they're completely nuts.
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Not the best example of account of people named "Smith" are more likely to be of Anglo descent than the average, but sure.
However the legacy publishers and agents and authors will gradually realise, I hope, that people are increasingly buying from whatever "country" they choose, in practice, and that the old borders don't make any sense in a global economy. And that trying to tell people to go away when they're saying "Shut up and take my money!" is not a particularly sound business model when the book is likely globally available on a pirate site two or three clicks away.
Governments are very slowly waking up to how this affects their citizens, too, with the Australian government getting intermittently quite cranky about the Australia Tax on digital goods.