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Music Media

Columbia Japan Music On Demand, On CD-R 135

Posted by timothy from the slow-march-of-a-clue dept.
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."
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Columbia Japan Music On Demand, On CD-R

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  • reportage (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MacAndrew ( 463832 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:21PM (#4841015) Homepage
    I love these opinion-free stories!

    Not that I disagree with the submitter's bias, and he/she is very up-front about it. :) Interesting contrast to the mainstream press which usually tries to appear impartial.
    • Interesting contrast to the mainstream press which usually tries to appear impartial.

      yeah, right. does anybody really believe that there's such a thing as impartial or opinion-free press? I have yet to see one
      • Some try harder that others, some succeed better than others. Little things like having real editors who look at stories before they go out the door can make a big difference, even if the oversight is light.

        I know I select who to trust by their track record, and then only trust them to the degree warranted. I try, anyway; I get hoodwinked now and then like everyone else.

        Who do I trust? Why /. of course. (grin)
        • Well, the problem is, I think, that the more people read your magazine, the harder it becomes to stay independent. Advertising deals might require favorable stories for the product or company, contributions from interest groups bind into supporting a certain political view.

          The costs of publishing in large volume make it prohibitive to rely on small-scale advertising and subscription income. Just have a look at the major newspapers in the United States (e.g. New York Times, Washinton Post, USA Today). None of them is impartial or unbiased in their reporting.
          • I don't think it's the advertsing that does it at the journals fortunate enough to be fairly well-off financially (NYT, WSJ). In any reputable journal the ad and news depts. do not talk to each other.

            The cause of problems IMHO tend to be old-fashioned ones like laziness, pride, and incompetence, not the exotic like corruption.

            It helps a lot to have access to multiple sources of news, including int'l, and to take it all with a bit of caution. I love the NYT but have a little list in my head of areas where they are less than perfect. The Wen Ho Lee case may be one of the most tragic, and that was largely driven by one reporter who the editors may have hesitated to challenge.
        • The editor I work with most frequently has recently been applying an old and worthy technique to my work.
          When you finish your first draft, look at it and find the thing in it you love most. The obscure fact that you are sure everybody should know, the analysis that proves your brilliance once and for all, or, even more importantly, proves X public figure a fool/genius, the telling anecdote/fact. Take that thing out and kill it dead.
          It's a great (though humbling) way to reduce bias. Now if only more of our journalists had such unforgiving editors.
          Rustin
          • Now if only more of our journalists had such unforgiving editors.

            Yes, they would kill them all. :)

            I like the old expression that an editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff, and prints the chaff. (And I'm someone who has done more editing than writing.)

            Glad to hear you have such a constructive relationship. Remind your editor, however, that when you are famous you will crush him/her like a grape. Keeps them on their toes. ;-)

    • Let's examine the submission, shall we?

      ...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!...
      --Well, as far as embracing/rejecting technology, record labels HAVE disagreed with a lot of technological developments in the past and have not changed their business/technical model drastically in 10 years. That's a fact. This is radically different from the previous method of distribution. That's a fact.

      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),
      --I can't vouch for the veracity of this statement, but it seems like it isn't an opinion, but a fact.

      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.
      --I would say that this is very slightly an opinion, but I don't think you could find anyone that thinks it's NOT an encouraging solution to the control of out-of-print recordings. Maybe if you were a business that specialized in rare records. Anyway, there is NOT bias obvious in this text either.

      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."
      --This is also a fact.

      So, show me the bias. I am not stating this as an end-all be-all, but you got modded up by claiming there's bias in the submission, but I don't see any. And if you were referring to the "from the slow-march-of-a-clue dept." part, then that's just asinine. That part of the site is nearly ALWAYS used to express an opinion about the story.
      • Actually, I got modded down for suggesting the squib showed bias. Up came later. The first modder must have been biased. ;-)

        The opinion, more than bias, comes through to me clearly, enough so that I started laughing. Mostly in "embracing *some* aspect of the technological revolution!" tranlsates as "Finally the Luddites get a glimmer of a clue!" (Otherwise why emphasize "some" of end with an exclamation point.)

        The rest is more subtle, but it's there. I'm curious what "various industry types" means; it suggests some flippancy about the (recording?) industry, and it's the submitter not the industry types who uses the deprecatory term "Big Record Label." Having read it, don't you think you could exactly state the writer personal opinion? This differs from merely setting out the merits and demerits of a new scheme.

        I don't have the slightest problem with this because it's right there on the surface (to my ear) and I don't really suspect the writer of concealing or misrepresenting information. (Even stating facts, one can spin a story by not stating other facts -- half-truths -- of exaggerating our certainty in certain facts.) The tone of the story is someone's who's really pleased with this turn of events after much dismal news.

        There, how's that for an overwought explanation? What can i say, I enjoy reading between the lines, and I'm just thinking out loud. And I may be totally worng about the submitter's intentions, but I doubt it.

        Oh yeah, as for "from the slow-march-of-a-clue dept" I assume that's an editorial enhancement. But now that I look at it -- I routinely ignore these quips -- it certainly sounds like the editor saw the story similarly to me.
        • Absolutely. My exercise was really one in Devil's Advocacy, because I know how the submitter felt. When I think about that, I suppose if I know what he felt, then there must have been some bias.

    • Re:reportage (Score:5, Funny)

      by isorox ( 205688 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:55PM (#4841181) Homepage Journal
      Yes, we want more news people to declare there own feelings, like morbo:


      At the presidential debate.

      Morbo: Morbo will now introduce tonight's candidates. Puny human number one, puny human number two, and Morbo's good friend, Richard Nixon.
      Nixon: Hello, Morbo. How's the family?
      Morbo: Belligerent and numerous.
      Nixon: Good man. Nixon's pro-war and pro-family.
      [Audience cheers]

  • Be expecting that in x(?) years? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mitreya ( 579078 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <ayertim>> on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:24PM (#4841036)
    So US is behind Japan technologically by how much? 5 years? Is that when we can expect this to propogate to US?

    • Re:Be expecting that in x(?) years? (Score:4, Funny)

      by EggplantMan ( 549708 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:24PM (#4841321) Homepage
      About the same time that ogg vorbis becomes popular and Linux becomes the operating system of choice.

    • Re:Be expecting that in x(?) years? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rayonic ( 462789 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:54PM (#4841431) Homepage Journal
      Shhh... don't tell anyone else this, but I've been able to mix and burn my own CDs from home for years now.

      It's still very top-secret-hush-hush, so don't go telling all your friends.
    • Who's been waiting? MP3.com has not been waiting and neither have many other pressers of fine CDs.

      The big dumb publishers have finally gotten off their buts to do something, but do we really want it? The storyline, (e.g. that Big Record Label cannot support small acts as it must press x copies of the album), reminds me of my local cable operator. They would tell me, "We don't support that browser/OS/Whatever_non_M$," and I'd say, "Fine, my browser/OS/whatever_non_M$ works well without your support, what I need is your broken DNS/whatever fixed." Services those folks had were pathetic compared to running your own and in the end, that's what I'd do. Like the record companies, they tried to prevent me from running said sevices for myself - I don't give either them my money anymore.

  • Re: Technology (Score:3, Insightful)

    by grumm3t ( 620808 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:27PM (#4841052)
    I don't think it's a matter of technology, but rather the ethics behind doing what the people want.

  • What about jewel covers, CD art, etc? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dagg ( 153577 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:27PM (#4841053) Journal
    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 [tilegarden.com]

  • It's much easier for me.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...to download everything off of Kazaa and burn it to CDR myself. Much cheaper than a plane ticket to Japan, too. ;)
    • Yeah, except that Kazaa has crap for Japanese music. I can't even find half the songs on the top 10 lists, let alone the top 100 lists!

  • Been there done that. (Score:5, Informative)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:29PM (#4841057) Homepage Journal
    http://www.mykaraokecdg.com/xcart/customer/

    Soundchoice has been offering custom CDG karaoke cd's for about 1.5 years now. Go online, select your tracks, plop in a credit card number and a magical CD comes to your house from this magical guy named the fed ex man.

  • This would be cool... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rickthewizkid ( 536429 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:30PM (#4841061)
    ... if I could gert *any* music track I wanted... even out of print stuff. I would gladly pay, say, $1 per song and pay $15 for a CD filled with stuff I *like* - that may be no longer "officially" available - and not have one or two tracks I like and 13 crappy tracks....

    RickTheWizKid
    • No, that's not really enough. Not to sound cheap or anything :), $1 per song is not an acceptable price. Publishing expenses should be reduced, right? No color booklets, etc.

      Plus you would have to pay S&H charges... and I can trust them (BMG 1c/12 CDs anyone?) to make these unreasonable.

      • Ah, the magic price point. I've been thinking about this.

        Under capitalism, the "optimum" price is what the market will bear, barring unprofitability. There may be multiple such prices -- raising the price will increase margin but decrease volume, and so on. Certain prices get people unusually excited, like 99. The market is more than just you, it's the aggregate of every potential customer.

        Anyway ... I'm pretty sure the a la carte price will have to be higher, partly because the disk is custom-made -- probably little labor, but a whole lot more than a mass-production run of 500,000 -- partly because you're cherry-picking but must help offset all the music that was produced but did not sell, plus overhead (significant), plus promotion (OK, I guess that's overhead), etc. In the beginning there will be start-up costs, plus the higher costs of low volume. Bleeding-edge products usually come at a price premium to early adopters. What I'm saying is that the actual costs of the service may be higher than they appear, though of course there will be significant cost savings, too, which may not be realized immediately.

        But ultimately, it's ... the price the market will bear.

        I wonder what that price is? How about a flat rate to fill a disk however you choose? Americans in particular don't like being nickel-and-dimed. How about different prices for different classes of music, like platinum, gold, silver, and, ah, bronze (oldies)? What about a subscription basis - a disk a month, and if you're not sure what you want they can recommend compilations tied thematically?

        Interesting puzzle, isn't it? And one I'll bet you, for all this copy-protection and DMCA hooey, the labels are talking about it right now behind closed doors. I think a lot of regular customers would like this, having all the fun of designing an album, then getting it delivered to your door. No computer, no hassles. Sure, maybe an extra $5. :)

        • One company did this ... gone now (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Greedo ( 304385 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:58PM (#4841448) Homepage Journal
          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 [cductive.com].

          Can't connect to their site now. And a look at their whois record [easywhois.com] seems to indicate that they were bought out by EMusic [emusic.com], 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.
          • 1$ a song is too much.

            Becuase these stores do not have to carry the inventory, the price should be lower.

            • I disagree. $1 per song works out to approximately the same price for a custom full CD of songs as a standard studio CD of songs. It's a figure the consumer is familiar with (I was going to say "comfortable with", but ...).

              So, you're paying the same price, but getting a much better product.

              You are right, however, about stores not needing to carry inventory ... so their overhead would probably be lower. CDuctive was online-only, but getting burn-yer-own CD kiosks into your local HMV or whatever would be uber-cool. They'd need to invest in the machines and technology and stuff to get this going in the first place, so I can see the inital price being somewhere around $1/song, but they could probably drop that after a year or so ... when studios realize that it's an incredibly inexpensive, intelligent and in-demand way of getting their product out.

              (They'd also probably offer songs from their back catalog at a lower price, or the latest hits at a slightly higher price. I can see the price of a song varying depending on factors.)

              I would gladly pay $1 for a full-quality version of a song, rather than fire up Kazaa and try and find the lower-quality MP3 rip.
              • Back when CDs cost more to make, and record stores had to carry all that inventory, $1 a song or $16 a CD was a reasonable price.

                Now CDs (both stamped and burnable) are lot cheaper.

                Look at all the CDs in a record store. If you buy one of those CDs, the odds are the artists will not get a cent! If they do get a piece of the action it will be #2 at the most.

                Under the present system, we are getting ripped off. I want to see a way where the artists can get paid, the record stores can still exist and we who buy CDs are not getting ripped off.

                Right now we are getting ripped off. It is time for some new business models that use some new technology to bring us lower prices.
        • It is clearly arguable what the price should be... I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of economies involved.

          Funny you should mention the cherry-picking effect, though. You're saying that the prices SHOULD offset the produced music that did NOT sell? The music that is not sold should NOT be produced! A car manufacturer that produces cars that are not sold, can not expect to raise the price of the better cars to offset the losses? Why should RIAA? Oh, wait, it's a monopoly, so it can do that...


          • Funny you should mention the cherry-picking effect, though. You're saying that the prices SHOULD offset the produced music that did NOT sell? The music that is not sold should NOT be produced!


            This is how the record insustry has always worked, up until recently. The label signs 100 artists, most of whom sell a little, 10 of which sell a lot. The vast profits form the 10 top sellers cover the costs of keeping the other 90 around, which slowly and steadily sell over time. In the end, everybody wins.


            However, today the model has changed. Labels only care about the 5% that are megasellers, dropping everyone else after one non-platinum album. They're no longer interested in maintaining a back-catalog, just in the top-10 hits. This may be a Good Thing from a pure-capitalism-theoretical-economics point of view, but it's not a viable model for providing a product in the real world. This, and the ~17 dollar selling price for a CD, is why record sales are dropping, not rampant file sharing.



            A car manufacturer that produces cars that are not sold, can not expect to raise the price of the better cars to offset the losses? Why should RIAA?


            Yeah, that's what all companies do - raise prices to cover losses (of course, the difference is that it's a lot cheaper to make a CD and keep it sitting around the warehouse than to make and keep a car that doesn't sell).

          • A company has to compensate for losses, or it dies. It's reality, not a moral judgment.

            Also, my essential argument was that it's not a Q of what the price should be, but of what it will be. That's up to the market, and I'm sure they'll be happy to lose the people who think the price is too high if they make more at a higher price with others. Capitalism.

            As for not producing bad sellers -- wouldn't clairvoyance be wonderful! But they'd probably get too conservative if they had to do it that way and bury us in tripe. Look how daring TV is.
        • Self-serve. This is an era of vending machines and ATMs. Why revert to old tech when we already have better? Sure, refill the machine and occasional maintenance, but let's be honest -- is it cheaper to have a Coke machine or a minimum-wage guy standing around selling Cokes?
      • Traditional CD music stores have to cary this huge inventory of many CDs. Most of this does not turn over very fast. The technology exists so they do not have to carry all that inventory anymore. We could have stores that burn CDs on the spot for us and print the labels etc. The copyright holders would get cut in for a piece of the action when the CD gets burned at the store. They could store much of the stock on a hard drive. The more obscure stuff could be downloaded from central servers. If I want a mix instead of a particular CD, I could select the songs and artists on a workstation at the store. These workstations could have headphones so I could give a listen to tunes I am considering adding to a CD. I coud design a cover and case graphics too. I think the public would go for this. It may terrify the record companies though.

  • Columbia is part of Sony. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:33PM (#4841070) Journal
    So will the CD-R's be "protected" by Label Gate?
    • I read the FAQ and it seems as if there's some kind of copy protection:

      "Will R-Ban require special players? R-Ban is designed for playback with ordinary CD players. It may be impossible to play them on some car stereos, DVD players, etc. that our customers may have."

      • Re:Columbia is part of Sony. (Score:4, Informative)

        by morpheus800e ( 245254 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:52PM (#4841171) Homepage
        I read the FAQ and it seems as if there's some kind of copy protection:
        "Will R-Ban require special players? R-Ban is designed for playback with ordinary CD players. It may be impossible to play them on some car stereos, DVD players, etc. that our customers may have."

        Actually, I think that refers to the fact that some car stereos and DVD players (not to mention portable players) won't read CDR discs. Though this is more true about older players than current ones, there are certainly going to be players out there that can't read these discs.

        Now, if it had said that they couldn't be played in computers, for example, we'd have to worry more about copy "protection."
  • The question I have about this is where will this lead to with collectors assuming this catches on? For example, I collect vinyl, and much of the vinyl I own there are very very limited copies of. Because of this they are worth something. This is not meant to say that CD's are worth money (for the most part they arent worth the plastic they are printed on) but I wonder how labels will go about structuring things to limit them for collectors. I just hope people keep pressing limited quantities of vinyl :-)

    • For example, I collect vinyl, and much of the vinyl I own there are very very limited copies of. Because of this they are worth something.

      A vinyl record from the nth printing of an album will most likely still be worth something because it's from the nth printing. Example from comics: Even though MAD Magazine has reprinted its first 18 or so issues a few years ago, original copies of the first few issues still fetch a wad of dough [verylowsodium.com].

      I wonder how labels will go about structuring things to limit them for collectors.

      Is it in a monopolist's interest to limit the production of a good at any level other than where marginal revenue equals marginal cost? No. That's the price that maximizes the bottom line.

      • This is so offtopic but I just had to say it. That link to wad of dough had to be the funniest thing I've seen all day. Thank you for the laugh my friend.
    • Well, just the fact that they're limited editions makes them (potentially) valuable, assuming that some collector's market appears. Of course, this won't mean any additional profit for the labels, but for the aftermarket, as it were.

      That said, the "Special Collectors Editions" of albums and DVDs that keep appearing like lint seem to make a shitload of money for the industry, so perhaps they're on this as well.
  • Note: I don't read Japanese, so my question might actually be answered somewhere on the page.

    Why is it necessary to burn a copy of an album on demand? Are the customers requesting out-of-print albums? What would they be buying that the stores wouldn't have in stock, or be able to order a regular pressed copy?

    That said, this is pretty cool. There are CDs that I bought years ago and scratched into unplayability that I would still listen to, but can't find another copy to buy.
    • Are the customers requesting out-of-print albums?

      Short answer: Yes.

      Long answer:
      Looking through the current catalog of about ~250 songs reveals that there are barely any albums that have been released in the past five years. For those who are into JPop, there's no CDs from Hamasaki Ayumi, Utada Hikaru, et al. (Yes, I'm aware they're not from the Columbia label)

      Not many Japanese people in their young 20s would probably purchase these CD-Rs because they like the artist (most probably don't even know the artists that are listed).

  • The difference between Japan and other places (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:44PM (#4841118)
    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.
    • That's the way it used to be here, back when we had vinyl and you could buy a 45 for 65 cents. Here, sonny, sit down and let grampa tell you all about it. Hey, where you going? Damn kids!
    • They used to sell lots of CD singles (and before that tapes) in the US. But, you can't buy singles much anymore. Some group (you get one guess) decided that if you can buy the one song you want too cheaply, it will impact high(er)-profit CD sales, so they pretty much cancelled CD singles. Granted you can still find a few, but not like you used to.

      There was a link I had months ago talking about this, but it's long gone. My own experience, though, was that around 1996 or so Best Buy and local CD stores were SWAMPED with CD singles of all kinds, Best Buy especially used to sell them for less than $5, and I bought (and still own) a ton of them, and often own the albums too. Go into a Best Buy or local CD shop now, though, and you'll find little else beyond the full releases.

      This is NOT because CD singles weren't selling, it is because they WERE selling...

      sheephead

    • I find this amusing, because when I was just a lad (say, 40 years ago) I and my friends only bought 45 RPM records. As we matured, we were able to tell the difference between "artists" and those "one-hit wonders", and didn't mind buying the albums of the really good artists. There is still a difference, and I still don't mind buying albums (now CDs), even though their prices have become outlandish, of true artists. If a musician or group can create an entire album of rich material, that's a piece of work worth the investment. If they're only good for one song, they're not worth my time. (Where are the Beau Brummells when we really need them?)

  • Translation (Score:5, Informative)

    by CBNobi ( 141146 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:44PM (#4841119)
    Japanese as a first language comes in handy..

    The about/FAQ page [r-ban.com] of the site:

    Product Specification
    - This product contains audio reproduced from the original CD source to a CD-R, and as a result, the quality remains identical.
    - The labels on the product are newly designed for the R-Ban series.
    - The instruction manuals (covers, liner notes, etc) have been newly designed, based on scanned copies of the originals.
    - The instruction manuals, as a result of the scanning process, may be difficult to read due to errors in font size, printing, etc.

    Warnings
    [usual warnings, same as CD]
    - It is recommended that you use a regular CD Player when playing the R-Ban. Certain models of car stereos and DVD-players may have trouble playing back the media.
    (Copy protection? Meh..)

    FAQ
    1. Regarding purchase
    Q: Can I purchase R-Bans of other titles not available in the catalog?
    A: Not at this time.

    Q: Where can I purchase R-Bans?
    A: Through specialty Internet merchants and music stores that support the R-Ban series.

    Q: How long will it take to receive the media after ordering?
    A: They are created after the order, so it may take up to 2-3 weeks, in addition to other delays.

    2. Regarding sound quality
    Q: Is there any difference from the original CD?
    A: Since the R-Bans are duplicated from the original CD source, there is no difference.

    3. Regarding the instruction manual
    Q: Are the designs the same from the original?
    A: The covers, liner notes, labels, etc. have been newly designed for the R-Ban series, respecting the original design.

    4. Regarding playback
    Q: Is special equipment needed for playback?
    A: It is recommended that you use a regular CD Player when playing the R-Ban. Certain models of car stereos and DVD-players may have trouble playing back the media.

    Q: Are there any precautions for playback?
    [usual CD warnings]
    • I doubt there's any copy protection or anything like that. It's simply that the lasers in some (often older) CD players and especially DVD players simply can't read CD-R media, depending of course on the dye used in manufacture, and the burner, etc etc. See http://www.vcdhelp.com for more information. (Especially useful are their lists of DVD players and those players' compatibility with various types of media.)
  • Granted, most of the items currently offered are Japanese in origin
    What's wrong with that? Most of my music is Japanese. NA music sucks.
    • Yeah, NA music sucks, but Japanese music sucks more.

      Fucking geeks think everything from Japan is cool, when in fact Japanese consumer/popular culture is just an amped-up version of the worst aspects of *American* consumer/popular culture.

      But whatevery trips your trigger.

      • Re:Umm... (Score:2, Offtopic)

        by rob-fu ( 564277 )
        Well said. This website [engrish.com] can't demonstrate your point any better.

        The funny thing is that Japanese people will wear clothing with English phrases and not know what they mean -- one girl wore a t-shirt that said, and I'm not kidding, "Miss Urine Tester." Worth a look.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re:Umm... (Score:3, Funny)

            by rob-fu ( 564277 )
            You're right, I should have mentioned that. That's a very good point. Perhaps someone should come up with a website that examines English-speakers wearing clothes with Kanji on their clothing.

            I don't own any articles of clothing or anything else with any Kanji on it. If I do decide to buy something with Kanji on it, I'll consult someone who can read it (i.e. a native Japanese speaker). I don't want to walk around with a shirt that says "I like to have sex with animals" in Japanese and not know it.
            • Even worse, how about people that get Kanji characters tattooed in the back of their necks? Did you ever wonder if the tattoo guy decided to fuck with them by putting "stupid shithead" on their skin?

              Sorry. Now back to the original thread, already in progress.
              • actually,my (japanese) girlfriend once met someone in a pub with her name tattooed on their skin...
                & most japanese pop is excruciating (in my opinion.it causes me pain anyway).
                fantastic marketing though.& the cd-single personal stereos are very cute...

  • How would this benefit hollywood without drm? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:46PM (#4841141) Journal
    We all know without drm, the whole country will fall apart and go into communism and our whole culture and way of life will be ruined since music will no longer exist!

    Go ask Hilary Rosen or Jack Valentini and they will tell you that hollywood will go bankrupt thanks to the freedom to code whatever we want! Someone please think about our children.

  • Custom CDs? (Score:5, Funny)

    by coloth ( 630330 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:56PM (#4841187)
    How quaint!

    I already have plenty of coasters, though.

    I rotated my CDs into coaster duty a while back.

    The 3.5" floppies were moved from coaster duty to table-stabilization.

    The 5.25" floppies were moved from table stabilization to roof patch.

    The audio data cassettes went from roof patch to birdcage lining.

    Thus, I was finally able to burn all those guano-soaked punchcards.

    Looking ahead, I'm interested in any information on the permeability of MP3's.

  • You call this new? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Phybersyk0 ( 513618 ) <phybersyko@NOspaM.stormdesign.org> on Sunday December 08, 2002 @09:59PM (#4841212)
    Back in the 80's the Japanese had a kiosk system that you could buy a game for the 8-bit Nintendo Famicom. It was like $5.00/game (depending on game)... The games were copied to yellow 3.5" floppy disks. The disk drive attached the the "belly-button" expansion slot on the bottom of the unit.... And it was red in color.

    A friend of mine bought his copy of Dragon Warrior (known there as Dragon Quest) on a floppy disk. The game-pak based game save had not yet been invented, and so you had to write down a bunch of wierd heiroglyphic symbols in order to resume from where you left off....

  • Didn't Pepsi do this? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 ) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:03PM (#4841226) Homepage
    I rememebr a few years back pepsi did something like this, you could trade in 'pepsi points' for tracks on a custom cd, 20 pts for a 5 track cd, 50 for 15 or something. They had a listing of the tracks you could pick, and not all of it was super-mainstream stuff. I'm not sure of the format though, i never bothered to collect enough points.
    • Actually Pizza Hut did it, I have 2 of the CDs right now. I also remember you could go into Sam Goody and picking single songs from this big fat book and get up to 90 minutes of only songs you wanted to hear on a cassette. I don't remember if you could get a CD from it or not, but it only went on for a few months, then was discontinued.

      Eventually, I do think the time will come when anything more than 5-10 years old that you want on CD will be recorded right there in the store, and only new CDs will be pressed, with all the accompanying liner notes and art. It will become just too cost-prohibitive to have backlogs of CDs sitting in a warehouse waiting to be shipped.

      It sure would be much easier to have the tracks sitting on a CD-R burning machine and just picking individual songs from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s that you like being put on a CD. Even at $.50 - $.75 a song, the burned CDs would fly off the shelves. There would still be people downloading off the Internet, but I think most people, if given the choice, would rather get tracks they know are complete and high quality, already on a CD. Of course, the record companies would find a way to screw it up by adding encryption, or some such other crap to each CD.

      Maybe someday they will learn; just not today.
      • Eventually, I do think the time will come when anything more than 5-10 years old that you want on CD will be recorded right there in the store, and only new CDs will be pressed, with all the accompanying liner notes and art. It will become just too cost-prohibitive to have backlogs of CDs sitting in a warehouse waiting to be shipped.

        I'm not sure about that. It depends on the cost model you use. If you treat every one of those units as a fully priced CD then yes, its a lot of money you have sitting on the shelf. But if you think of every one as a $0.25 piece of plastic and paper that has no value until someone buys it (which is what they really are), then you can afford to warehouse a heck of a lot more of them.

        And there's no wastage as older music is fairly non-perishable. Not like a warehouse full of beasty boy or JLO CDs - that would make a rotten smell real fast.

        I think the record companies will fight like wolves for quite a while longer to prevent digital distribution starting up. Once they are no longer seen as delivering "units" people will start asking just what it is that they do do.

  • I worked with Japanese developers 9 years ago (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:10PM (#4841269)
    About 9 years ago I went to Japan to do the final testing on a VMEbus OSI/MAP (TokenBus) card we were buying for some SGI workstations that were being used for Process COntrol in our steelworks in Australia. The company that we commissioned to do the work, CTC in Kanagawa prefecture in Tokyo, were also developing software to allow Karaoke bars to download music on demand via ISDN. Not sure if it was just a single 128K BRI line, but I guess this would not be quite enough for high quality recordings. (Near CD quality MP3 is 128Kbps so downloading 1 hour of music would take an hour).

    Anyway I guess, as we all know, the technology of using digital comms to transfer music is not new. It's just the marketeers haven't quite got the guts to deploy it.

  • We want to know more about CmdrTaco's E-Cups! (Score:3, Funny)

    by KNicolson ( 147698 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:20PM (#4841309) Homepage
    Looking at the catalogue page, I see the album Oh Taco [r-ban.com] , with the tantalaisingly katakana-ised sub-title Golden Cups, and other mentions of the E-Cup's.

  • Its tough for the little guys... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mbell ( 80219 ) on Sunday December 08, 2002 @10:39PM (#4841377) Homepage Journal
    Hey, I know how tough it is for a small artist to make it big. If burning cd's like this can help the little guys (like myself) get exposure, I'm all for it. And if you want to check out my style of electronic music, go to wickedallstars.com [wickedallstars.com] and download a free, high quality 192kbps mp3 of the third track on my cd. Feel free to burn it to cd and share it with friends if you like it.

    -mike bell
    www.wickedallstars.com
    cec.wustl.edu/~mwb1/

  • warning: page in Japanese ? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why "warning?" Is Japanese dangerous to
    your health?

    How about "note: page in Japanese"
    next time?

  • Virgin Records did this years ago. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by puto ( 533470 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @12:01AM (#4841716) Homepage
    IT musta hav been 3-5 years ago in New Orleans, I had a girlfriend who worked at the Virgin Record store. I remember going to see her(and check out her coworkers) and that had this machine that ypu picked your tracks from a list and it burned you a cd. It took awhile, you got a recept and picked it up from the staff in like 20-30 minutes. IT was like a buck a track. I remember thinking that it would be a cool idea, but hell I had a burner and didn't pay it any mind. I guess I wrote it off like I did video jukeboxes in 84(remember those? Morris Day and the Time, Michael Jackson, Scandal).

    I would also like to see more traditional bands promoting downloads on the net. By traditional I mean guitars, drums. Maybe even a singer. Not techno,trance mixes from stolen samples and loops. Most of us can do that. I dabbled and dee-jayed but never considered myself a musician. Give me some high quality acoustic guitar playing, clean vocals. Just cause it is on the computer dont need to sound like it was made on one.

    Puto
  • ...but in a slightly different form. Back when the Famicom Disk System was popular in Japan (basically an NES with a disk drive) there used to be machines [atarihq.com] where you would pop in a disk, pay a fee, and it would write, and out comes Zelda II or whatever your heart desires. Only thing is, it was pretty hard to copy these games in comparison to the CD-Rs that are used today.
  • When I was in Japan I saw similar kiosks in a variety of places, except that they recorded to MD rather than CD (minidisc is much more popular there than, say, the US). Another odd (I thought) thing that is common in Japan is CD rental. You can take it home for a couple hundred yen and copy it at your leisure. The stores even thoughtfully put the blank MD displays right next to the rental counter!
    • yes,i've seen them in a lot of the main train stations.never seen anyone using them though... & being able to rent cds is wonderful.in some places ( http://www.tsutaya.co.jp/index.zhtml for example) you can even ask to listen to them on a listening post before you rent (in case you don't want to risk that 200 yen:)
  • Did anybody else have to read that title 3 or 4 times before it made any sense?
  • I thought about similar things several months ago...
    But the problem was for me getting the licenses to burn & sell music & get enough burners to supply the demand that would have been, as my budget was only few hundred euros to try... so i went for something
    else, i had allready nearly completely, i bought a server (damn i got it cheap, even tho it is a duron 1.1ghz, i got the whole thing with 256mb ram & 80gb hd for total price of ~240euros nearly everything has warranty still on).

    I just wish thehre were somebody selling demoscene music on cdr's also =D
    And this would expand to europe etc... if the prices are low enough, like 10euros per cd + few euros for shipping & handling there will be very high demand i think.... you've could order customized software cds including patches, demos etc... for sometime now and it's finally time to get music also =D
  • Cool idea, but not new, blah...

    My biggest issue with this would be the lifespan of the media. CD-Rs are supposed to maintain their integrity for what, ten years? A pressed disc (they predict) will last for at least fifty. But I suppose by the time another decade and a half has passed we'll have a new dominant medium and have to repeat this process once again.
  • Now why can't the american labels be that smart? If it works over there...It could work over here...

    (yes yes I know... possibly flamebait or troll...It just annoys me to see companies spending all there effort and creativity in the legal system rather then putting it to good use).
  • Liquid Audio was offering custom-made CDRs in a shop in Seoul, Korea 3 years ago. At the time, they had a wide selection of Korean music and it's my uderstanding that the project did very well.

  • ...to the ubiquitous question, "You moron! Didn't you read the article?!", I submit,

    (warning: page in Japanese)

    ...probably not.

  • Columbia Japan (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Tom Bombadill ( 17942 )
    I find it interesting that Columbia Japan is the first to offer this service.
    Columbia is notorious in Japan for being out of touch with modern music and really bad at promotion for decades. Someone new must be at the helm.

    I also have to wonder how much money the artist will see. I have family who have hundreds of songs recorded with Columbia, mostly in the older catalogs. I will be very curious to hear if any money at all ever reaches them.

    My father in law has around seven hundred recordings with Columbia Japan. If anyone will hear from them I expect him to.

    My expectations are low however, I know Columbia was selling some tapes from the older catalog with my mother in law's works without ever contacting her.
  • There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the
    changes on its corollaries; that's philosophy. Two: Record many facts.
    Try to find a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that's
    science. Three: Be aware that you live in a malevolent Universe controlled
    by Murphy's Law, sometimes offset by Brewster's Factor; that's engineering.

    - this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...

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