Digital Music Downloads Too Expensive?

threeofnine writes "The Sydney Morning Herald has an article written by a copyright and technology lawyer asking if we are paying too much for digital downloads. From the article: 'Parallel imports are unavailable in the Australian digital market, however. Australian consumers cannot purchase downloads from iTunes or Wal-Mart in the US, which are often cheaper than downloads available here, without a US-issued credit card. And restrictive licensing conditions imposed by copyright owners also limit the sale of digital downloads across international borders. For both reasons Australian consumers miss out. And retailers cannot buy downloads from overseas and resell them here, even if it is worthwhile for them to do so. In a recent analysis, the prices of Australian-made CDs of artists such as Bon Jovi, REM and Robbie Williams were compared to those of legal parallel imports. It was found that the local product was as much as 300 per cent more expensive.'"

Comments

What do you expect from down under?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have to be 300% more expensive because they know that Australia the nation of criminals will be stealing music.

***Ducks***

I find Bittorrent and Sharaza.......

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

to be quite reasonable at $0.

Goose, meet Gander

[Detritus]

That's globalization for you. Don't complain if your job gets outsourced to a cheaper worker, half-way round the world. Don't even think of undermining the local distribution monopolies by importing cheap goods from other regions.