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If a business acquires the right to distribute a product in a particular territory, its contract will prevent it from selling that product in other territories. If it does so, e.g. by catalog, it could be sued. This is a civil, rather than criminal, matter.
I thought I said it was unless the purchaser bought stuff in person. This becomes f***ing expensive...
I suspect that, in the case you refer to, the legal problem was not the importing of books itself, but paying for them in Pounds Sterling (or buying UD$ to pay for them), as there were strong exchange controls operating un the UK in the post-war years. There would be no problem if the guy had US$ funds available.
Some governments have taken the view that these exclusive rights are not in the public interest, and have legislated to legalise "grey market" or "parallel imports" to prevent these civil suits. Some people deliberately confuse this with "piracy", trying to claim that there is no difference between a counterfeit product and a legal one acquired through a non-approved channel. In fact, when NZ legalised parallel imports, the US government objected strongly, a wonderful comment on their "free market" policies.
There are still restrictons that bite, even in the USA. Amazon will sell books, CDs and DVDs to almost anywhere, so they must have done deals with publishers, but they will not sell most other things outside the US. They say: "Warranty issues and manufacturer restrictions prevent us from shipping certain products to all geographical locations".
--brian
-- Wellington, New Zealand
"What's life? Life's easy. A quirk of matter. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh."
Right. In this case the distribution had already been done to the store in the other country. So why does an alien have to bodily...