kerosan41 Wrote:I highly recommend buying from a secondhand shop. You can get some incredible discounts, especially if the CD is an older release. 200円 for a CD is not bad at all.

Or just go to your local rental shop, like TSUTAYA, rent some CDs and copy them. Japanese law permits copying rental CDs for personal use as long as you don't share them. Have you ever noticed all the blank CDs, MDs, and MP3 players for sale at TSUTAYA.

I agree that the distribution of Japanese music mostly sucks outside Japan, but I do like to support the artists when possible . I've found some awesome Japanese music on http://www.emusic.com. Most of it is of a more indie flavour, which I certainly don't mind. Here are a couple of lists:

http://www.emusic.com/lists/showlist.htm...name=&cs=1.
http://www.emusic.com/messageboard/viewT...cId=213611#

On a per track basis emusic is reasonably cheap too.

samsam Wrote:

kerosan41 Wrote:I highly recommend buying from a secondhand shop. You can get some incredible discounts, especially if the CD is an older release. 200円 for a CD is not bad at all.

Or just go to your local rental shop, like TSUTAYA, rent some CDs and copy them. Japanese law permits copying rental CDs for personal use as long as you don't share them. Have you ever noticed all the blank CDs, MDs, and MP3 players for sale at TSUTAYA.

I'm not too positive about Japanese law exactly permitting it, but there is nothing they can really do to stop it. For example, the original Shakkazombie CD has copy protection on it, which you need to illegal crack to even rip it to your computer.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:I'm not too positive about Japanese law exactly permitting it, but there is nothing they can really do to stop it. For example, the original Shakkazombie CD has copy protection on it, which you need to illegal crack to even rip it to your computer.

I was skeptical too when I first heard it is alright to copy CDs in Japan legally for personal use. If you have some free time and want to read about the copyright laws in Japan here are three really useful links (all Japanese):

http://homepage1.nifty.com/hujitako/saji...cdcopy.htm
http://www.ron.gr.jp/law/law/chosaku.htm
http://www.muryo-soudan.jp/advice3620/index3842.aspx

The first link is the simplest in explaining the law. There are some strange clauses to the rules. After a CD is released in Japan, 3 weeks must past before it is allowed to be rented or 1 year for non-Japanese CDs. So people who want to listen right away must pay the 3000 yen fee to buy the CD. That 3000 yen price for an album is also set by law.

I am not too sure why they still add the copy protection. Maybe it is too prevent people who bought the CD in the first three weeks from copying and sharing it.

I sometimes rip it off of YouTube, but as other posters have said, I do like to support the artists the few times I DO want to get some music.

As for not buying online, as others have mentioned it's not impossible. You really just have to search around. Personally, I use http://www.yesasia.com/us/en/home.html

Granted, I've only bought 3 CD's there because I rarely ever spend my money on them, but it seemed reliable enough. Aside from a -tiny- crack on the plastic CD casing on one of my orders, everything has been fine. They've all worked fine, and although shipping can take a few weeks sometimes, they usually aren't far off their estimated arrival times.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do recall Khatzumotoさん being a supporter of the site as well?

Sometimes if there's a particular CD you want to buy, they'll have a shop on the band's official website. I recently bought a CD from Luminous Orange (extremely good shoegaze band, sounds like My Bloody Valentine crossed with Sonic Youth) from their online store and included in the package when it arrived was a handwritten note from Rie (the band's leader) apologizing for the lateness of the shipment (even though I didn't think it was late). Now that's good service!

I've had good success with several of the vendors mentioned above, so I'm mostly just seconding or thirding other people. But I've had good success with cdjapan/neowing, yesasia and playasia. I've actually sent in requests to the last two to see if they could dig up some stuff they don't normally carry, and both have located the items. It took a while, and the communication wasn't the best but I was impressed each time.

I tend to get bit by stuff that ends up being so obscure I can't hardly find it legally or otherwise on this side of the ocean so I'm always pretty pleased when a place gets something for me.

Amazon's alright too, but as with their manga and such, their shipping is KILLER now. I remember ordering stuff from them years ago and it was way more reasonable, but that was a long ways back.

Editedit: I only discussed the uh, 'legitimate' venues because the other stuff was already pretty well covered.

Many people may not know this, but White Rabbit Press (http://www.whiterabbitpress.com) has a special order service that can buy anything in Japan and ship it to you.

Go to the homepage -> Support -> Submit a Ticket -> White Rabbit Xpress - Special Order Service

And just list what items you want. It can be anything.

Even better is that they can even send used CDs (which are far cheaper than new albums).

For example, there were 8 CD albums that I've never been able to find at japanese CD shops in America. I submitted a custom order to White Rabbit Press and they found all but one album.

1 album they couldn't find.
4 they found in used but excellent condition.
3 were in brand new condition

Used CDs were priced between $4 to $10. New CDs were $25 (for the albums they couldn't find any used copies).

Shipping (to America) would've cost me $18 or $25 depending on which shipping method I picked.

So if you're looking for a service to ship used japanese CDs to America, I'd go with white rabbit press. Open a ticket. Specify that you prefer used CDs and then give them a list of albums (even just Amazon.co.jp web links are OK)

I even bought my electronic dictionary from them (Canon Wordtank V300) and only paid $25 shipping from Japan.

I'm french and there's a growing number of JPop and Enka (I love Enka ) albums on the french iTunes store. The price is always under 10€ ($10 for you in America) and the quality is good.

I like iTunes for one reason: I can listen to the songs before I buy. BitTorrent is good for dramas, but downloading random JPop albums with BT (because I know almost nothing about all those bands on the trackers) is painful if I don't like what I get, most albums go the trash and I've wasted my time. I discovered iTunes a month ago and I love it so far.

And no, it's not an advertisment, I'm just saying that high quality DRM-free songs + cheap price + song preview = less pirating (at least for me)

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:download...
I love Chinese people lol. .

Yeah, there is so much more stuff out there for free if you don´t mind Chinese subtitles/whatever else!