Quote:
Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj
But I would be quite happy if there was a way to prevent a work that was once on sale and available to the public from becoming unavailable, or from restricting its availability to only some form (paper books/e-books/audiobooks). Currently there are so many books that are available on paper, and as e-books - just not for me, because I happen to live in a country where no one who has the copyright wants to sell those things to me. Why should piracy be my only option?
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Yes, I think it's entirely reasonable to demand that once a work be made available for purchase it should remain so, now that we have the technology to circumvent the issues of print runs and stock levels in many cases. This, after all, was a main motivating force behind the establishment of national libraries such as the British Library and Library of Congress. Electronic delivery is not a panacea, though, there are still many works that are only really of value in a physical form, think of photo books for instance.
Issues of geographic restrictions are ultimately issues of pricing, and slightly thornier, since they involve squeezing out inefficient local markets in favour of global ones.