If the U.K. edition is out of print, then the Australian authorities do allow me to ask my bookseller to import the U.S. edition, thanks to some recent relaxations due to our consumer affairs authority.

doesn’t sound right. My understanding is that customers can request a special order for any book outside the US and booksellers can import that book.

What I don’t get is that, given this exception in the parallel importation restrictions, why can’t we do the same for ebooks? Is it because the law considers print, audio and ebooks the *same* book?

Those contract terms are dictated by authors and agents. Publishers can only buy the territories authors and agents are willing to sell. The more rights authors/agents can carve up (territory/format/etc) the more deals they can do and the more money they get.

Until we have that, we will also continue to see markets whose economies are so unbalanced compared to ours, that a single paperback book would cost them a months’ salary, and is therefore out of their reach. It is this unbalance that creates “territorial rights” by necessity, so it is this unbalance that needs to be addressed.