> IP rights to the same work in different countries are sold separately, and can end up being owned by different companies My understanding is that most licenc

> IP rights to the same work in different countries are sold separately, and can end up being owned by different companies My understanding is that most licences grant permission to consume the content (listen to music, watch the film ...) irrespective of the country of your physical location (as long as its not public broadcast or rented out). Otherwise I would need to repurchase all my ipod songs and reading books when I go on holiday. > Also, different countries have different economies, which means it makes sense to manage distribution in separate countries separately. In physical distribution this makes sense. Each country has a different import/customs bureaucracy which must be followed which takes time and money. Then you need agreements with shipping, wholesalers, etc. But over the web, serving separate countries is trivial. In fact, the web server doesn't know where your customer is until you geolocate their IP address. Besides, I'm sure there were reasonable business reasons to exclude blacks from certain businesses too. Perhaps allowing blacks into a pub would irrevocably damage its brand with its standard clientele; perhaps allowing blacks to sit on a bus would mean the business would need more buses to ensure that all whites could have a seat; perhaps allowing blacks to rent a room in a hotel would mean it would be more expensive to keep track of whether the bed sheets have been used by a black couple or not. Legitimate business concerns may explain discrimination but not justify it.