[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

Because, according to law (international law, I believe, but definitely the law in all countries I'm familiar with) the 'place of sale' for a pbook is the location from where it's shipped while the 'place of sale' for an ebook is the location where it's bought.

Is that actually a point of law, though? I've looked for cites, never found one that pins this down in law, as opposed to custom. I've found plenty that define 'point of sale' as the location of the seller, mostly related to mail-order, but nothing the other way.

These [contract restrictions], technically, don't prevent you from buying the book, but they do prevent people from selling it to you.

I've never seen a contract between an author and a retailer (or even a wholesaler) that would prevent retail sales of books based on geographical location. Contracts between authors and publishers, yes. It's a fairly fine hair, granted - the retailer has to get stock somewhere, and it's going to be tricky if nobody has rights to publish the book in that country - but there's nothing actually preventing the retailer from making the sale, AFAIK.