Harry, you are quite right
however I think that is one of the issues that needs to be remedied longer term for ebooks to be viable (and is discussed in many other threads here). It is possible to buy a physical book from the USA and have it shipped to the UK, since the place of sale is the US (for physical items) but if you buy a download, the place of sale is where you download it to. This is putting off adoption of ebook readers outside the USA, where the popularity of the Kindle has helped to grow the market.
I'm not a lawyer and I am sure there were good reasons to regard ebooks differently from 'real' books, as they are downloads, the same as software etc I guess, but I just don't think it is aiding adoption.