@Titus Technophobe
I was objecting to your use of the word 'theft' in regard to downloads. With your bean analogy it would be theft because I am depriving you of something. Every box of beans I steal would be a box of beans that you then wouldn't have.
That's not the case with downloads. Take as a theoretical case somebody downloading an album or film with absolutely no intention whatsoever of buying the official product. Morally dubious, yes, (I think unlawful is the term - IANAL) but there is no loss to the rights holder as nothing is taken. The rights holder has just many copies as ever to sell. There is no lost sale as the downloader was never going to buy it anyway.
You're also looking at the issue from the creator's POV, and 99% of this argument isn't with the creators...it's the media associations that are ripping both the creators and the public off. To run with your bean analogy, let's say that in order to sell your beans you have to join a farming collective. They are charging $1000 a box; but you're only seeing $50 of that; and they have a contract for your entire yield for the next 10 years. You were hungry and you needed to see your beans, so you signed. Sure you're able to heat your house with flatulence alone, but you still need cash for tools and things.
Now getting back to downloading...the 'regionally available' stuff is an antiquated and artificial scarcity. Sure it used to work when vinyl and postage was the only way...don't release a product in some markets and people would be happy to import a product at extra cost. And to an extent, that was fair enough...you have to consider the logistics of producing extra copies, sending these physical items to foreign places. And if you got the numbers wrong it was expensive.
With digital products, none of this applies: set up a site with a paywall in front of the download - problem solved. Anyone, anywhere in the world can buy your product and enjoy it more-or-less immediately. And there are no logistics, print or supply problems as you can calve off copies of your product until your server explodes or the heat-death of the universe (whichever comes first). Artificial scarcity in this environment is bullshit, and the potentially purchasing punters know it.
In fact, it makes unloading physical products easier too; as you can centralise your order-taking and just post them from wherever you happen to be.
Absolutely agreed that the creator of the work has the right to do whatever with the work. The game changes, however, when media ass.'s get involved. If an organisation is deliberately creating artificial scarcity, then the people in those areas who 'can't access' a given product are going to find their own ways round it. Right or wrong; that's human nature. If I produce an album and release it across the UK, except for Wales (random example!); what are the people in Wales going to do? I give you one guess. They're going to find another source to obtain said product; and quite possibly download my entire back catalogue while they're about it as an additional 'fuck you'.
Telling people they can't have something increases the likelihood of them wanting (and obtaining) it; and many business models rely on this very fact. Telling people they can't have a digital product (or something that can become a digital product in very few mouse clicks) because they live in a certain region is bullshit. Everybody (except the media associations, apparently) knows this.
If a creator doesn't want to get on the internet, that is their decision. However. The vast majority of people (I'm guessing here) buy and store their media in electronic form as it's easier and a hell of a lot more portable. So even if I abide by the creator's (somewhat eccentric) sales technique and buy a waxed cylinder of his work from his bike basket; I'm still going to convert it into something electronic for my own convenience. And sooner or later a copy will probably escape from somebody. You can wish for other outcomes but that's much the same as wishing for the tide not to come in. Telling people "you can't have it" is equally futile, unless you're saying it for some free publicity.
You have to work with human nature. The various media ass.'s efforts have been a "You're doing it wrong" poster from start to finish. The whole approach of "we're going to arrange for some extra oppression so you give us more money" has only one answer: "Fuck off".
Most of the problem can be easily solved. But it won't be.