Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
As far as geo restrictions, as far as I know, there isn't anything in any treaty that forces it. It's simply a business matter that is enforced via contracts. There is nothing that keeps an author from signing a contract that gives world wide ebooks rights to a specific publisher.
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That's all true but I was talking about the inverse - in light of Timboli's point -
how would you create rules that oppose geo restrictions? I can't see how you could do that without international agreement.
I suppose some country could go it alone and declare that once a work is released somewhere in the world it must be made available there within a reasonable time. But that's a pretty aggressive stance. It wouldn't surprise me if it's effectively outlawed by current agreements.
Either way, whether it's go-it-alone or new internationally agreed rules, I think it would take a lot of political will to implement this. And the cases where works are unavailable probably aren't common enough to create the support the politicians would need, when there's a lot of vested interest in the current system.