Extract" "False: All what the posters received was the same old corporate spin." Comment: interesting. Specifically point out how it is spin, please. Extract: "False: Giving an honest explanation would have made treads llke this uneccassary." Comment: Bullshit. The answer was direct and to the point. As I noted earlier, it would require the individuals involved to actually educate themselves on global trade issues for small software firms dealing through third party fulfilment systems. Not hard, but obviously beyond the abilties of those complaining. Extract: "False: Noone wants CL to loose money. What people want is an honest explanation. BTW, whats wrong with "Fairness" ? To be honest, discussions like these give me the impression that a few members here constantly confuse a buisiness relationship with fandom. Curious Labs is a corporation that sells software. Even though this software seems to have a big impact on many members lives, they are just that: A buisiness entity. And as long as they treat one part of their customers differently from the other part without giving a plausible explanation, they will have to face criticism. Just like any other corporation that does the same." Nothing is wrong with fairness. Fair would be to take the matter matter up with the company handling the fulfillment. Fair would be a single worldwide currency. Fair would be a world where things like human nature and difference are tolerated. Fair is a goal, but not a reality. You are correct that the fans of the software appear to be ridiculously foolish when it comes to dealing with the companies involved in it. Not just Curious Labs. DAZ and Renderosity as well seem to have some sort of active groups harboring age old grudges against them where the companies essentially will never be able to do anything without angering pollsters. However, Curious Labs does not treat one part of their cutomers differently. Digital River does that. There is a difference between Curious Labs and Digital River. They are two separate customers. Attend to the actual issue, not the one that's easy, and you might get somewhere in your goals. Extract: "Now, my order shows I have to pay this outrageous sum of 51,59 EUROS for shipping by UPS Overnight. This is what the drop down box provided. I have since found out on a DAZ forum that it should be UPS International but surely this cannot be charged at the Overnight rate. It would be impossible to Austalia anyway" Comment: This strikes me as the usual "get some profit from shipping while we're at it" scheme ar too many people use (it is especially prevalent on Ebay, based on the fees my wife has been charged). The fee you pay for shipping there -- and the specific options you have (international is a different service from overnight, and both exist) -- are determined by Digital River. If I were in this boat, I would feel an overwhelming need to cause harm to digital river's business. Extract: "This thread started by pointing out that our FTA means THERE ARE NO ADDITIONAL TAXES OR DUTIES added to the US prices." Comment: And, as near as I can determine, there are none. Your particular interpretation of the fees being applied is wrong. A Tax or Duty is applied under Law. In other words, the governments state these things need to be charged. A difference in price based on currency rates is not the same thing. Grasp that concept. It will do you a world of good. Extract: "ANYWAY, this has exactly NOTHING to do with the fact that CL and/or DR overcharge their Non-US customers for downloadable goods. Claiming that "They will lose money" again and again is just spin if you cant back it up." Comment: 1 - CL is not overcharging. Digital River is. 2 - You need to look up the specific definition of spin as you applied it and rephrase that statement. Spin, in case you hadn't noticed, is just another way of stating the truth. The concept you are seeking is misdirection, or perhaps lying. Regardless of that, however, there is no "backing up" a statement like "they will lose money". Absurdist posturing. It is not the role of a customer to determine what constitutes an acceptable loss to a company, it is the role of those who run the company. Extract: "- What would happen if I decided to charge US customers $15 for that program - but let everyone else buy it for the normal price of $10?" Comment: Irrelevant. You can't do that here. Also, inaccurate. A more accurate comparison would be you submit a product to Renderosity and state your wholesale price and sign a fulfilment contract. You provide them with the price in your native currency, and they they do the rest -- including pricing the product according to whatever agreement you have established. They then proceed to charge more. BEing renderosity, they would get their rear's chewed for it, but ignore the complaints, you would get your money, and either have to deal with it until you could pull your product (by which time the damage in sales will have been done) or be quiet and smile and offer little tidbits like the above. In short, the same thing that is going on now. Extract: "Hmm, I could use that explanation to justify racism, sexism..." Comment: Yes. And agitating for greater fairness is always a good thing. Just agitate int he right way and to the right people. Screaming about the unfairness of black society to white people will do you no good in a town with no white people. Extract: "Wonder why they didn't do this. They at least took preorders of P5 themselves and we were able to buy in US dollars." Comment: Entirely second guessing them, but one would estimate that the reason is they did not have the wherewithal to do so in a manner that was satisfactory to them. Althought he basic mechanics of such sites are easy in principle to set up, the back end support -- customer service, fulfilment (server hostings for multiple downloads in the thousands at once as well as additional handling and backups), and similar -- is not easily nor inexpensively done. A simple set up to handle something where only a mere 1000 downloads a second could be concurrently run worldwide would require a small investment of around 40,000 to start, and goes up from there. That's not counting the training, hiring expenses, and location for the servers, nor the expenses for a business to install and maintain the appropriate mirrors abroad. So I would say it is because they don't have the ability to do so to a level that they felt comfortable with. I would also say that is a simplistic and unaware suggestion. General Comment: Beyond that, I will second the comments of this Hauksdottir person. If you don't like the price, then do not buy it, and do not go to a forum and complain about it when the purpose of that forum is stated to be for other purposes -- and then get upset when folks take you to task for it. If you post, someone will respond. And in kind. If you post to incite -- as I admittedly do -- then people will respond heatedly. If you post in kindness, you recieve those as well. Which is not to say do not complain about it -- but when you do, do it in a manner that gets something done, which posting to here does not do.