Information may or may not want to be free, but it does not want to be geographically restricted.

I remember reading something by Michael Moorcock once.  One of the Eternal Champion books.  Perhaps I had one of his books among the hundreds of books I used to have before I moved?  I remember it as good penmanship, but nothing sensational.

Today an online friend wrote in praise of some other novels by Moorcock , and I decided to pay another visit to his writing.  I logged on Fictionwise.com and looked at which books they had by him. As is all too often the case, they only had a part of his large production. Fictionwise has a very varied selection of books, but they do have this tendency to only have a few books from each author, sometimes even incomplete series, or a complete series not available in the same e-book format throughout.  It was not quite that bad this time.  I found one book that looked interesting, as it took place (or at least started) in Nazi Germany, while at the same time having a more cosmic aspect. The Dreamthief’s Daughter was also available in my favorite e-reader format.  I was ready to press the order button when the web site informed me that I could not buy it. It was geographically restricted.

There is probably some reason for this. Authors and publishers sell different rights in different countries or groups of countries.  I am pretty sure the book is not banned in the Socialist Workers Paradise of Norway. So it is probably some kind of deal in the past that prevents them from sending the e-book to Norway.

Never mind that.  I removed the book from my shopping cart as instructed, and logged out. A quick visit to Google with the search “Moorcock torrent” assured me that his books are easily available by simple piracy, no matter what country one lives in, should my need to read them ever become overwhelming.  It is not now, however.