It is cheaper for Australians to fly to the USA to buy software

Simple math:
Cost of Adobe Creative Suite Master 6 in Australia: $ 4334
Cost of Adobe Creative Suite Master 6 in the USA: $ 2599
A plane ticket from Sydney to Los Angeles and back: $ 1,147.58 (Virgin Australia)

Flying to the States will save a simple Australian designer about $ 587. The Australian programmer who will fly to the USA to buy Visual Studio will save even more.
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On February 11, a committee at the Australian Parliament sent agendas to Adobe, Apple and Microsoft. Representatives of the three companies are required to appear on March 22 at 9:30 am to testify at a hearing on software pricing in Australia in connection with complaints from Choice and ACMA.

Software and other digital content varies greatly in cost in different countries. Since the cost of creating a new copy is close to zero, the retail price is determined for marketing reasons. In a poor country, prices are lower; in a rich country, they are higher.

Australia is not lucky most. Almost all digital content is much more expensive than in Europe and the USA. According to Choice Consumer Protection Society, software prices in Australia are on average 34% higher than in the US, iTunes music is 51% higher, Wii games 88%, computer components 41% . Probably, the main logic of the high price is that the Australians have nowhere to go, they will not fly to another continent to shop (although see the mathematical example above).

Human rights activists have come to the point that they have published official recommendations for Australian consumers with the advice of faking IP addresses and credentials in Internet services. When visiting online stores, the consumer rights protection community recommends using virtual private networks (VPNs) and alternative DNS servers like Unblock Us to show the US IP address to the store. When ordering a digital product - indicate the place of residence in the United States. In the iTunes store you need to have an American account.

In October 2012, Choice also submitted a request to the Australian Parliament asking for a solution to international discrimination from large corporations. Now it came to hearings. On the causes of the "Australian tax" representatives of Adobe, Apple and Microsoft will tell on March 22.