Aussie Parliamentary Inquiry Into Software Pricing Announced 259
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by
Soulskill
from the but-it-takes-special-engineering-to-work-upside-down dept.
from the but-it-takes-special-engineering-to-work-upside-down dept.
New submitter elphie007 writes "Australian consumers may finally see the end of being overcharged for software simply because they live outside the U.S. Minister for Communications Senator Stephen Conroy (champion of Australia's National Broadband Network) is reported to be finalizing the terms of reference for a parliamentary inquiry into software pricing in Australia. Last week, Adobe announced Australians would be charged up to $1,600 more for Adobe CS6. With the ongoing strength of the Aussie dollar against the U.S. dollar, Australians should really be paying less, not more for software & music purchased online."
Devils Advocate (Score:5, Informative)
I went to purchase Diablo III from Blizzard's online store, and after signing in to my Australian (or SEA or whatever region) battle.net account the price went from US$Price to AU$(Price+20).
I tried to play devils advocate on this one, and what I came up with is that bandwidth and rackspace in Australia are much more expensive than other parts of the world.
But I get the feeling Blizzard don't have battle.net servers in Australia, and since most of their content delivery comes through Bittorrent (and who cares if they "seed" it themselves from the US with cheap bandwidth or AU), so I don't know why it costs so much more.
Re:To be fair (Score:5, Informative)
The US price is 1300. Even including GST, that is in nearly double the US price. Considering the Aus $ trade for $1.04 USD, that's outrageous even including currency exchange costs.
Re:To be fair (Score:3, Informative)
At least australia wont send you to gitmo or send some fake FBI to arrest you with false warrants.
Dude, all adobe is selling is a serial # for activation, it doesnt matter where one lives. I know you americans are poor and cant afford 20 tacos for lunch daily with their 4 gallon coke drinks.
Stop asserting MAYBEs.
My AU$ converted to US$ electronically is done automatically via Visa or Paypal, and at only 1-2% rates. NOT your imaginary 10%, high street 711 stand.
Buying a serial # from USA is not the same as importing products into AU. From adobes point of view, I an AU customer should be identical to an American.
Stop lying, american corporates are charging Au, Eu, Asia, everyone higher prices to subsidise the dismal crap economy in mainland USA. If you had zero foreign sales, your local ones will send you bankcrupt, but thats no reason to RIPOFF the planet, or all AU customers should just use a friend or proxy contact in usa to buy from usa.
Re:To be fair (Score:4, Informative)
1300 is the price for the absolute cheapest version of Adobe CS6. The article says "UP TO" so we can assume that is for the most expensive version. The Adobe site says the Master Collection is $2600:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite.html?kw=p&sdid=JRSIM&skwcid=TC [adobe.com]|22178|adobe%20CS6||S|e|10550251960
Second, the article says it is "up to 1400 more", not 1600.
So 4000/2600 = 54% markup in Australia.
Re:To be fair (Score:4, Informative)
Well I'll be honest. As a Canadian I know exactly what Aussies are going through, we've been dealing with it for decades and we're next to the US. It took a hell of a long time for it to change, the worst offenders were books. Seeing a list price on the back of $5.99USD and $11.99CDN with the dollar at parity broke the back of everyone on the issue. It was the same for software back about 15 years ago too. $49-59USD and $79-89CDN, until people said screw it and started ordering stuff from the US via backshop mailers who were willing to cut the price by $10.
Re:To be fair (Score:4, Informative)
Re:To be fair (Score:4, Informative)
That's a problem between you and your politicians.