Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
"Traveling," as frequently advocated to get a book more cheaply, is really just obfuscatory speak for doing an end run around an author's ability to maximize the profits from his labors as enabled by georestrictions. It is not accurate that the reader's right to get a book for as cheaply as possible trumps that, when it violates copyright law when the provider is not entitled to provide the content in the purchaser's location, or even when the publisher is the same in both locations. Price discrimination in this instance is neither illegal or immoral.
I'm not the internet police, but I think we should be honest about what's going on. No reader's rights are trampled by georestrictions and the ability to purchase a hard copy in the country in issue is irrelevant to digital content.
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You are of course entitled to express your opinion. I, on the other hand, object to the attempted price gouging that is going on simply because I choose to live in a particular country. I also object to arrangements which seek to prevent me purchasing content which is not available in my country. You may find this link instructive so far as price is concerned:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/0...crosoft_adobe/
So far as copyright law is concerned, if I buy a book whilst "travelling", as you put it, I am purchasing a perfectly legal copy and am not myself in breach of copyright. There may be contractual arrangements between the distributor I buy from which seek to prevent that distributor from selling to me, but depending on the contract it is unlikely that even that distributor is in material breach of contract or copyright. Geo-restrictions are a relic of the time before digital goods and the internet. There is essentially a single world market for most digital goods, with technological measures attempting, often in vain, to divide it back into geographical sections. The sooner this archaic abomination dies a well deserved death the better.