Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
Nobody is discriminating against you, publishers and booksellers have made contracts based on the old world order.
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Working around these restrictions is pretty easy. And if they ever do find a way to prevent me from buying something then I will read some other book.
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You know, when blacks were not allowed on the same bus with whites, or when women would not even be considered for a decent job, that too was "based on the old world order". And "working around those restrictions" was pretty easy too. You could just find some other country to live in, or be a housewife and spend all your life in front of the kitchen sink, what's wrong with that?
In your "old world", geographic restrictions on selling books were based on the real-world limitations, so they were not discriminatory. You couldn't blame Waterstones for not opening a store in Congo so that some tribsman could buy a book in English. Now, however, this tribesman is one click away from the store, but the store refuses to treat him as a paying customer because he's from the wrong continent. The online stores and publishers keep acting as if the real-world geographic limitations still apply on the Internet, and refuse to recognize that technology has made their old business model blatantly discriminatory and anticompetitive. Old restrictions on WHERE you can sell (which are merely obsolete and anti-free trade) have somehow been translated into restrictions on WHO you can sell to, which are just plain wrong, unfair and anticonstitutional.
So if the publishers don't respect my basic rights, they should not act all outraged if I refuse to respect their rights in return. Call it stealing if you like, it means nothing to me. If copyright holders throw my money in my face because they don't like my nationality, I'll help myself to their "copy" for free and won't feel any compunction about it.