the choice in paid books is the same, although more expensive
Some ebooks are only available in some regions. The recent ebook flamewar about piracy was kicked off by an Australian reader telling an author she'd downloaded the ebook because it wasn't available for sale in AU at all.
It's a matter of international contracts about publishing rights.
The author sells the rights to a US publisher for US publication, so he can sell British and Australian (etc) publishing rights to other publishers, because the US company may not have an interest in selling books in those places. But if there's no publisher in your country that is interested in the book, you can't buy it--except by buying the US version & having it shipped. Stores can sell to people overseas; the contracts just say that publishers can't distribute there.
The problem: Physical book sales are presumed to take place at the location of the store, or warehouse. They can convert international currency, throw a shipping price on top of the sale price, and sell you the book.
Digital sales are presumed to take place at the location of the buyer. (Or, more accurately, the location of the main office of the bank providing the buyer's credit card. If you visit the US, you walk into a bookstore & buy things that nobody will ship to you; you can't go online to Amazon & buy US-only Kindlebooks while you're here.)
The key issue isn't that "this is the law" (I gather it maybe is in the UK? Less sure about other places; it may be established by contracts instead of law), but that publishers have no interest in fixing the problem... they don't want to sell US ebooks to people in other countries, because they're under the impression that those people will buy hardcovers instead if no ebook is available.
no subject
Some ebooks are only available in some regions. The recent ebook flamewar about piracy was kicked off by an Australian reader telling an author she'd downloaded the ebook because it wasn't available for sale in AU at all.
It's a matter of international contracts about publishing rights.
The author sells the rights to a US publisher for US publication, so he can sell British and Australian (etc) publishing rights to other publishers, because the US company may not have an interest in selling books in those places. But if there's no publisher in your country that is interested in the book, you can't buy it--except by buying the US version & having it shipped. Stores can sell to people overseas; the contracts just say that publishers can't distribute there.
The problem: Physical book sales are presumed to take place at the location of the store, or warehouse. They can convert international currency, throw a shipping price on top of the sale price, and sell you the book.
Digital sales are presumed to take place at the location of the buyer. (Or, more accurately, the location of the main office of the bank providing the buyer's credit card. If you visit the US, you walk into a bookstore & buy things that nobody will ship to you; you can't go online to Amazon & buy US-only Kindlebooks while you're here.)
The key issue isn't that "this is the law" (I gather it maybe is in the UK? Less sure about other places; it may be established by contracts instead of law), but that publishers have no interest in fixing the problem... they don't want to sell US ebooks to people in other countries, because they're under the impression that those people will buy hardcovers instead if no ebook is available.