For a few weeks, 2K Games' new title, Borderlands, was available to Australians at the same price on Steam that it was available in the UK and US. The game has been pulled from the Australian Steam site for the last week. Kotaku is now reporting that the game will reappear at a much higher price.

2K Games' Borderlands (image from Kotaku)

This probably doesn't quite amount to resale price maintenance, which is the illegal practice of setting minimum prices so that retailers don't undercut each other. It's probable that the relationship between Steam and 2K is complicated enough that this isn't technically an example of game prices being hiked up in order to lessen competition and protect Australian retailers, who have become used to selling games at a much higher price than their counterparts elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, it is the sort of behaviour that's likely to annoy consumers, and quite rightly.

The huge markup for electronic distribution seems to be a trend - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, for example, is available from Steam for Australian residents at USD$89.99, and US residents for USD$59.99.

This is, of course, no big surprise for Australians. We have become quite used to paying more for books, music, and movies. What's particularly upsetting is that there is no way that retailers can justify the price increase for digital distribution by blaming the size and remoteness of the Australian market - the bits no longer have to be shipped here by boat.

When Trent Reznor realised that the price of his CDs in Australia were, in his words, 'ridiculous', his advice to his fans was to "Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin’", because that was the best way that publishers would "get it through their head that they’re ripping people off and that’s not right."

We don't condone copyright infringement here, but there is growing unease amongst Australian gamers about the unfairness of a system that seems to discriminate against them - even when, as now, the Australian dollar is doing extremely well against the US Dollar. Perhaps if the industry cares about how fans view publishers, it will do something to address these concerns.

For now, we suggest that you purchase your games from overseas retailers, or get a friend with access to an international Steam store to gift it to you at their lower prices.

The QUT Faculty of Law and Queensland Public Interest Law Clearing House are running two free intellectual property and technology law advice sessions in October and November in Brisbane.

Professor Brian Fitzgerald and Kylie Pappalardo from QUT Faculty of Law, in conjunction with Queensland Public Interest Law Clearing House (QPILCH), have established an IP and Technology Law Clinic to provide free legal advice for members of the creative and technology sectors with limited financial resources. Ask legal professionals about copyright, recording and publishing agreements, media rights, digital distribution, business models, and much more.

Book now for the inaugural advice sessions: Thursday 29 October 2009 and Thursday 26 November 2009, Brisbane CBD from 5:30pm-7:30pm.

To make a booking, call (07) 3136 6836

This is an excellent opportunity for those who need free legal advice in Brisbane. If you're not in Brisbane, you may even be able to get the lawyers at the clinic to give you advice by telephone.

Mr Michael Atkinson, the South Australian attorney general, still misunderstands a key issue affecting Australians and it's an issue that those he represents are demanding that he consider.

Australian gaming website Kotaku has published a response to a letter that a member wrote to Mr Atkinson; unfortunately for law-abiding, adult Australian gamers the news is all bad. Not only is Mr Atkinson unrelenting in his position to cement Australia's status as the only developed nation not to have an adult categorisation for computer games, he is still displaying woeful deliberate ignorance of the key issues involved.

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EFA has lodged its submission to the Department of Broadband, Communication and Digital Economy's Future Directions review.

The submission tackles a number of important issues for the digital economy, including open access to public sector information, electronic accessibility of printed material to people with a print disability, broad-based ICT training, and copyright policy.

We conclude the submission with a reminder that our policy framework ought to empower Australians to access and build upon information in the digital economy:

As Australia transforms into a knowledge based economy, the policies we choose to adopt for the creation and dissemination of information become crucially important. It is becoming increasingly clear that greater access to information and greater technical and legal abilities to remix, build upon and improve that information are fundamental drivers of innovation. EFA believes that the single most important issue in an innovation policy is ensuring that Australians are empowered to innovate, and that the barriers we impose to innovation are justified with reference to our social goals.

Edit: This submission is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

Last Friday, Dale Clapperton and Nicolas Suzor appeared on behalf of EFA to give evidence to the Commonwealth Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network. EFA had previously provided a written submission to the Senate, voicing concerns about the increased cost to users and the potential anti-competitive effects of the proposal.

The full text of the hearing is available on the Hansard Senate website (direct link to PDF).

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Electronic Frontiers Australa (EFA) today expressed concern about a lawsuit filed against Internet Service Provider iiNet in the Federal Court. A consortium of media companies have sued the ISP for allegedly allowing its users to download infringing movies and TV shows by failing to terminate their accounts after allegations of infringement by the copyright industry.

"This lawsuit is the latest attempt by the movie industry to bully Internet Service Providers into becoming copyright police," said EFA spokesperson Nicolas Suzor. "ISPs are not in a position to monitor and terminate internet access to users based upon unsubstantiated threats from copyright owners, and should not be asked to do so."
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EFA has lodged a submission on the National Broadband Network proposal. In our submission to a Senate Select Committee investigating the proposal we argued that the proposed Fibre To The Node (FTTN) model would most likely grant further monopoly power to Telstra because it would require drastic modifications to Telstra's existing copper infrastructure through which most landline calls to domestic premises are currently carried, modifications which only Telstra would want to perform. We concluded that the benefits of a FTTN network do not outweigh the costs, and a FTTN network should not proceed. However, if an FTTN network is deployed, it is critical that its operator be structurally separated from the telecommunications carriers selling retail services.

Read EFA's submission (PDF)

EFA today lodged a submission with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), opposing a recently announced plan by online auction site eBay to require all Australian buyers and sellers to use PayPal for eBay purchases in most circumstances.

Many eBay buyers and sellers have very valid reasons for preferring not to use PayPal.  Their choice of payment method should not be overridden by eBay in the name of commercial expediency or increased profits.

EFA believes that eBay's proposed changes are without any substantive public benefits, and that any public benefits that may result would be outweighed by the harm to competition and consumers resulting from the changes.  EFA further believes that eBay's proposed changes may constitute a misuse of market power, contrary to s 46(1) of the Trade Practices Act 1974.