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

Why is this even news?

[DaHat]

Companies have been practicing price fixing for years based on location.

Don't believe me? Compare your cost of cable TV to people in other local cities.

This has also been the case for years with things like software, movies and textbooks where the producer will likely lower the price in some areas and raise it on others.

This is simple economics of pricing an item at what the market will bare. Don't like spending so much on a ____? Don't buy it then!