Alexandrus wrote:
Hi all, this is just unbelievable and terrible news, what's the internet for then if not to eliminate frontiers and provide access to the info anywhere, anytime, does anyone know if B&N will sell internationally anytime soon? As for now, my nook has decorative purposes, more like a digital frame ....
It's not a simple proposition. Look at Apple's online store experience. They have had to negotiate individual distribution rights in just about every single country they offer an online store, dealing with each nations copyright, tax distribution and other laws. To this day, there are still many countries without an online iTunes store, simply because the negatiations have proven intractable, or too costly (we all know lawyers do not work cheap, and negotiating foreign marketing agreements can take years to complete).
I'm sure online retailers would love to sell internationally, but copyright law alone makes that a nightmare to set up, not to mention blatantly illegal across many national boundaries. Only those companies with really deep financial pockets, like Apple and Amazon, have made major inroads in working towards being an international online presence. And even then, there are the geographic boundaries - people in some non-english countries complain they cannot buy English language books through iTunes - because national laws prohibit Apple from offering them in those countries. In the middle east, religious law may also restrict what a company can offer. There are all sorts of restrictions that have nothing to do at all with the companies involved, they have to do solely with the political and legal limitations imposed on international trade by the respective countries.
The internet may be intended to know no boundaries, but nations' own copyright, tax and trade laws sure enforce them.
