Columbia Japan Music On Demand, On CD-R

jwlidtnet writes "It seems as if Columbia Records Japan has instituted a series of 'albums on demand' -- written on CDR media (warning: page in Japanese). Granted, most of the items currently offered are Japanese in origin, but this is indicative of a record label that realizes how to embrace *some* aspect of the technological revolution! Various industry types have been espousing this method for years as an antidote to artificial concepts of media supply and demand (e.g. that Big Record Label cannot support small acts as it must press x copies of the album), and as Columbia seems to be offering mostly old catalogue items, this is an encouraging solution to the problem of the control of out-of-print recordings. One final note: of course, a system like this is only as useful as its retailer support, and it appears as if both Tower Records Japan and HMV Japan carry these CDR releases."

Comments

What about jewel covers, CD art, etc?

[dagg]

Does this include jewel covers, CD art, and the nearly impossible-to-open plastic that engulfs the CD case? If this is really manufacturing full CD's (CD-R's in any case) on demand, then that's pretty cool. Printing-press-in-a-box for CD's?

--Manufactured Sex Gateway

The difference between Japan and other places

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest difference is that the Japanese market has really taken to the concept of singles rather than entire albums. It is not uncommon to see unknown artists having their latest single showcased at the music store. It is cheaper for the recording companies to buy off a couple of songs and put it out than to sign the groups to full album contracts and the marketing that goes along with it.

Once a group becomes popular that their singles are flying off the shelf, they usually get signed to an album deal and their first album is a best-of based on their single releases.

This CD-R thing is nothing more than a logical outgrowth of that mentality and business style.

Why the U.S. and the U.K. have such ass-backwards album-first styles makes no sense to those of us in more forward thinking countries like Japan.

One company did this ... gone now

[Greedo]

I read this article and was immediately reminded of a company I bought 2 mix-yer-own CDs from a few years back: CDuctive.com.

Can't connect to their site now. And a look at their whois record seems to indicate that they were bought out by EMusic, which kinda sucks.

IIRC, CDuctive charged $0.99 per track, or $1.99 for the 10-minute-plus songs. Over all, my CDs cost around $20 and were full of goodness by folks like DJ Food, 9 Lazy 9, Coldcut, LTJ Sound Machine and others (they had several Ninja Tune artists, I believe).

Anyway ... too bad they're not around anymore.