I want to buy Poser 5. If I order from www.amazon.com at the price of 124 I am told they are not allowed to sell to Europe. Then I try www.amazon.co.uk and I am given a price of 534 (more than 4 times the price). I try Curious Labs website and click on the link for their UK distributer, Computers Unlimited. The link does not work and I get a 404 error. I do a search on google and find a cached version of the website which does not have a price, and it seems as though the company no longer exists (Does Curious Labs know they have a dead link and no longer have an agent in the UK). If I order from Curious Labs I get a price quote of 349 (almost three times the US price on Amazon). I try to order from Renderosity and again I am told that they may not sell to Europe. So I get a friend in the US to buy the program from Amazon and post it to me. Total price with shipping equals 157. What I want to know is why are the prices so much higher in Europe? This is the official response from Curious Labs which says nothing. "Why are the prices in your European store so high? Are you looking locally? We have priced our products in the European online store in order not to compete directly with our European distributors in your region as per the Curious Labs contract. Please contact your local distributor to compare prices before you purchase. You can find a list of our international resellers HERE." PS. As mentioned before, the HERE link does not work. PPS. I have checked and it is legal for me to purchase the program in the way that I have done. There is no law against an American friend sending me a software program as a gift, and me sending him CD's in return as a gift.

Attached Link: http://www.curiouslabs.com/article/archive/98/?df=1

I don't think what you're attempting to do is legal, but I doubt they'll catch you. I found a long list of European distributors at the attached link, including the U.K.: http://www.unlimited.com/ which worked for me.

OK, went to their site, which was not working for the last two days. Their price is equal to 424. Still more than three times the US price. If I am on holiday in the US, and I buy Poser, and then bring it back to the UK, would that be legal? Are there laws stopping me from buying things in the US. Are there laws preventing any US citizens buying any product in the US and sending it as a gift to anyone outside the US, as long as they are not reselling the product, which I know is illegal? Still does not explain the massive price difference.

sometimes a package can show up on ebay..That might be your chance there..Not all sellers will ship international so I suggest to ask the sellers if they will BEFORE you bid. also sometimes you have the buy it now option. Didn't bought poser there, But I bouth a lots of stuff there.And I live in Europe. It's worth a try sometimes. Nef

Don't blame CL for the price hike, blame the distributors. Sweet deal to be a distributor if you think about it, all the profit a product can give you and none of the development and manufacturing costs. All you gotta deal with is shipping, storage, and maybe shipping again. personally I think they're ripping you off, good to have friends in the US.

Attached Link: http://www.egisys.de

Outside US&Canada try www.egisys.de (aren't they the copyright holders of Poser?), they'll sell you the download version (in English-German-French) of Poser 4 for 95, Poser4+Propack bundle for 199 , Propack 145 , Poser 5 349. If you can't live without a printed manual or feel better with a box on the shelf you pay more.

I found this actually, I bought Poser5 before this 'Reseller' stuff started, a friend liked the product and went to buy it and discovered he would have to pay 250% more then I paid for it. Faced with a HUGE jump in price, he opted to pay extra and buy 3D studio.

Try here http://www.transaction-one.com/gs/html/gs/f2/en/home.jsp?pubid=2 101 from pro pack 136 from p4 and 169 full price.....i've bought a few from here and there prices are usually pretty good, as for amazon goodness knows what they are doing but they need a kick up the bum ;o).......Steve

As an extra not, the above company was called computers unlimited and upgrades unlimited at one point (a search for those at google brings them up) and have been selling poser since V2 at least, when they gave away poser1 with the cheap upgrade to P3 all those years ago these where the folks you had to call to get the cheap upgrade, and i believe they where at one time the only uk seller of poser or at leats the main official one....there is another good company that you sometimes see a pull out brochure for in magazines that sell mainly art stuff geared at Macs but with pc software if there are 2 versions, but i can't recall there names...Amazon aren't an art company and they are big so if no-one has told them they are charging so much over the odds maybe they just don't know, there prices can vary lots, a few things i've checked there where very expensive but sometimes there are real cheap (got a video camera, 100 off), but i think in the case of stuff like poser its best going to an art based company....Steve

Another option available for those without friends in the US, is that certain companies will supply you with a US postal address for rent. Amazon.com is not allowed to ship to Europe, but they can ship to your rented US address, from which it will be forwarded to you in Europe. As far as I am aware this is completely legal. You may have to pay import duties, but these should be minor compared to the price hikes you are talking about.

There is nothing in consumer law that prevents a UK visitor to the USA purchasing software and bringing it back. Similarly there is nothing to prevent a UK consumer purchasing software via a friend who lives in the USA. The only caveat to these methods is that the recipient in the UK may be charged import duty (17.5%) when the software enters the country (this has happened to me before). However, even with a 17.5% surcharge, and that assumes that UK Customs and Excise decide to inspect your suitcase/parcel, the price of Poser 5 still works out considerably cheaper. What would be illegal is if a citizen of the USA set up a business reselling software bought in America onto members of the European Union without a valid export licence. This is a similar situation to the purchase of region 1 DVD films by UK tourists for viewing on multiregion DVD players back at home.