Richard Grevers wrote:
It certainly shouldn't be a problem in New
Zealand. A year or two ago
we were heading towards such a relaxed copyright law (academic
institutions were to be allowed to copy quite freely) that
International textbook publishers were threatening to make their books
unavailable in New Zealand. I've never actually heard whether that law
change was defeated.
Inceidentally (and heading OT), many books published
in Britain in the
middle of last century carried the rider "for Copyright reasons this
edition may not be sold in the US and Canada". Does anyone know
thether this was because there were separate territorial publishing
deals, or because of lower legal protection in US/Canada?
A lot of that did have to do with publishing deals. At that time United
States copyright law was linked to a requirement that if any more than
10,000 copies of a book were to be distributed in the United States they
had to be printed there. To deal with this Penguin set up a printing
plant in Baltimore. In North America publishers have often thought of
the continent as one big playground, which explains why Canada is often
included in these. Canada has tended to give special protection to
distribution arrangements that give companies who can't make a living by
publishing their own books a chance to prosper from middlemen's
commissions. This gets involved in some sensitive issues in Canada.
Cultural domination is a consideration for many Canadians. New
Zealanders at least have the protection of a significant expanse of sea
between themselves and Australia.
Eclecticology