Purchasing from another country's iTunes store

Question

Hi,
I am based in Australia and use iTunes extensively to buy music. Some of the songs that I am after are not available on the Australia iTunes store, but are on the US site. Is there a (legal) way to purchase these songs?
Rael

Answer 1

Hi, Rael.
Is there a (legal) way to purchase these songs?
Unless you happen to have a residence and credit card billing address in the States, unfortunately there isn't.
The reason why has to do with the business part of the music business so, for a bit of insight into the present situation, let's have a look at to This Business of Music (10th Edition) (by M. William Krasilovsky and Sydney Shemel) :
The difficulty of establishing workable business models for digital files (...) extends to where they are sold and where they are played. This is the issue of territoriality, and it is an illustration of how the Internet makes it necessary to reexamine basic assumptions that have been taken for granted (...).
(....) In the music business the primary problem is that copyrights are national and therefore specific rights are tied to national laws and the interpretations of national courts.
(.... T)hough we can one day hope to see the development of common standards with respect to copyright, the fact that the music business is building upon a history of nation-specific contractual relationships means that the goal of universal international standards is not, for the forseeable future, a practical one.
(...) Adding to the difficulty (...) the copyrights themselves may have been assigned to different companies in different territories. The best hope for a cleaner start and a simpler future is worldwide recognition that digital uses are in fact - and should be in law - totally new.
You might also want to have a look at Scott P.'s User Tip for another angle on the situation.