On Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:23:30 +0000 (GMT), Paul Atkinson <[email protected]> wrote: > Couldn't have anything to do with the complexities of cross border > trade? The tax treaties in place, and the complexity of the > infrastructure that would involve? Partial exemption and eurostat on > VAT? Royalties to the different publishers in different countries > (putting aside issues over ultimate parent companies etc...) It has to > be some big conspiracy, not just practicality? Is internet delivery > based on the location at the time of purchase, delivery or normal > residence of the consumer? Do people really think the barrier to entry > for an ebusiness selling to multiple countries is just putting > something on a server? Come on...
I'm able to buy an hardcopy books on amazon.uk (and I did that multiple times as well as on amazon.com; hey, I even god what I bough on amazon.com posted from Germany -- destination France when there is an Amazon subsidiary in France), not (some?) softcopy one. The issues you highlight should not (note I didn't wrote "are not" -- I don't know those matter) be harder. I've complained in the past about the same issue (for audio books, and I didn't step over the line as Martijn did -- I'm perhaps not fan enough --, but I understand quite well his frustration after having completed several times the whole purchase process just to be thrown out at the last step). The restrictions seem artificial and I think they have their roots more in the distribution *contracts* than in IP, tax and custom laws. I.E. they segmented the markets in such a way they left out part for which there is no buyers of the distribution rights. For material things, you can find sellers able to dispatch to foreign addresses, for immaterial one, my guess is that the contracts just doesn't allow them to do it even if they wanted to do the legal work. It probably made sense to tighten the contracts. Historically the difficulty of physical shipping probably made a clause preventing foreign redistribution unimportant. Yes, people complain about inflated price (I've seen Englishmen complain about the more than 1£ for 1$ "exchange rate" sometimes applied) but nevertheless, the price of individual distribution made the alternative even more costly. Yours, -- Jean-Marc
