Australians Urged To Spoof IP Addresses For Better Prices

angry tapir writes "Choice, a prominent Australian consumer advocacy group, has urged Australians to obfuscate their IP address to avoid geo-blocking and use US forwarding addresses to beat high IT prices. Australia is currently in the middle of parliamentary inquiry into the country's disproportionately high prices for technology. Choice also suggested setting up US iTunes accounts and using surrogate US addresses for forwarding packages from American stores. Choice has noted previously that Australians pay 52 per cent more for digital music downloads on iTunes compared to US users."

Comments

Tor and using a specific exit node (and SSL!)

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how I ended up buying Battlefield 3 premium on Origin for a fraction of the cost (1500 INR (=22 EUR) instead of 50 EUR) by pretending to be from India.

Re:Tor and using a specific exit node (and SSL!)

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is the real reason for DRM, not piracy.

Re:Tor and using a specific exit node (and SSL!)

[2fuf]

Yes, it's the reason for DRM and at the same time the reason for piracy ;-)

Re:Tor and using a specific exit node (and SSL!)

[Solandri]

Not exactly. I do agree that region-coding DRM sucks and should probably be banned. But that's not what's going on here.

The Australian dollar has gone up about 40% against the US dollar in the last 5 years. If you compare game prices in AUD vs USD and subtract ~40%, you'll find the prices are nearly identical.

International contracts involving two currencies are usually written to cover one year at a fixed exchange rate. Consequently there's a large lag between when a currency goes up, and when prices go down (time constant is on the order of a year). Especially if the seller is a large manufacturer (like Apple), while the buyer represents a small market (Australia). They may not have enough negotiating leverage to get next year's contract changed to better reflect the high rate of currency appreciation. (To be fair, the manufacturer may also be worried that a currency rapidly rising in a few years is a sign that it'll also rapidly fall in coming years. And they don't want to get stuck holding the bag if that happens.)

Then you have the same thing going on at the retail level, where the retailer (who got ripped off by the manufacturer) now realizes the shoe's on the other foot, and they now have the upper hand in negotiating prices with the individual buyer. So you end up seeing retail prices which reflect the exchange rate 5 years ago, with half the excess going into the pockets of retailers, the other half going into the pockets of the overseas manufacturer.

The suggestion to buy from overseas is a good one. Typically the currency exchange fees and overseas shipping fees will more than offset any advantage you gain from lower pricing from buying overseas. But when the disparity is this pronounced, its sufficient to exert downward pressure on prices. The last thing you want to be doing in this sort of situation is grudgingly pay the higher prices.

Did you hear that?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the sound of the USTR laughing his way to the bank.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination

It's just another hilarious way intellectual property law is used to make money through abusing international borders.

Good riddance to geo-blocking

[madsdyd]

I live in Denmark, and recently spent 30 minutes to try and buy an english e-book online.

Found it at 3 different retailers (US, UK, Australia), that refused to sell it to me (add it to the basket), because of my location.

Then found it at 2 additional retailers, that allowed me to add it to a basket, then accepted my credit-card information, before refusing to actually sell it to me.

Then I got sort of mad and decided to break a 15 year old principle on not pirating stuff. Went to google, and had the ebook literally 30 seconds later! 10 seconds later on my device, and I could start reading.

What on earth are they thinking!

Oh, and I then later wrote the agent for the writer in question here in Denmark, and in the UK to offer payment. I have not heard a word from the UK agent, and the Danish one just confirmed that they do not sell the english language version of that writer in Denmark as an ebook.

Fools, really. And, they are probably, as I write this, banging on the door to the parliament, requiering stricter copyright laws.

Fools.

Re:Good riddance to geo-blocking

[Lumpy]

Welcome to what happens when copyright get's out of control. Thank the United States Congress for that.

and they wonder why we "steal" shit,...

[AbRASiON]

Steam does this - although generally not Valve who are good about this but more big big publishers who are sharing the service with Valve. Luckily with US contacts, I can be 'gifted' games at US prices.

It's disgusting and it's bullshit, if you're willing to sell a game, or a song or a book or fuck even a physical product to an American for X price and I produce the same amount of money for you and I take care of the shipping (or downloading the fucking bits) then frankly, fuck you for trying to charge me more.

This is much worse for console using folk on PSN and the 360, sure I have a US PSN account but I don't WANT to have to buy PSN 'money' in US format from gift cards just to get games at reasonable prices and then be left with 3$ or 13$ or whatever in 'change' on my account.
Honestly this bullshit just stops me participating entirely.

About the only reasonable thing of late is PC parts in Australia, due to the proximity to Asia and the AU$ being strong so long (and of course PC parts, high turnover) for the most part, CPU's, RAM, HDD's and so on are very very close to the US. Mind you if you are picky and want something high end or obscure like high end SAS controllers and stuff like that, sorry buddy, 4x the price.

So as I started with,... they wonder why we steal shit.... sigh

Re:Willful Misrepresentation is a Crime

[bloodhawk]

But we are not misrepresenting at all, I am legitimately utilising a VPN Service. I am not saying I am something I am not. It isn't our fault companies are morons and rely on a VPN address to try and work out what country I am from. IP Addressing was never intended for this use.

Re:Here is where you are wrong

[mcgrew]

The musicians don't want to be in control of getting their songs sold or booking performances. They want the "industry".

Where do you get these "data"? How many musicians do you know personally? I know quite a few, and none of them would touch an RIAA contract with a ten foot pole, despite labels courting them.

Face it, music is full of people who would be homeless and broke despite their talent

It's also full of people who are multimillionaires despite their lack of talent. If you're good, you'll get gigs.

The only one's that don't

You should have paid more attention in class, son.