Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It's a question of the legal definition of the point of sale. For a paper book, because the bookstore physically has the book, the bookstore is considered to be the point of sale, hence the bookstore can sell the book to anybody. For an eBook, the customer's PC is considered to be the point of sale, so the bookstore CAN'T sell you the book if you're in "the wrong place". Do you really think that Amazon doesn't want to sell you the book? It's a stupid law, yes, but it is the law, and the bookstore has to obey it.
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What I consider hard to understand is how that hasn't been changed yet. I see the "logic", but the idea is completely flawed.
Buying a book from US by internet and buying an e-book is the freaking same. The buyer is at his/her computer at the other side of the world, the shop is on US "floor". I can't figure out how there can be people (specifically, who make these laws), that fails to understand how stupid it is, but I assume they don't have a Kindle and they never tried to buy a book outside their countries. The point of sale is still the shop in any case. Call it the book store shelf, or the book store servers", but the fact is that the book is there, "in" the shop.
But well, I understand that money is the answer to all this mess. It's just sad that greed affects even a field that is supposed to be populated by reasonable and intelligent people - readers. With this I don't mean that who doesn't read is silly, but I've seen not to many idiots that like books.