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CD vending machines 54

Posted by CmdrTaco from the truly-strange-ideas dept.
stick writes "Now you can get CD's with your own music from a vending machine. It's only in Korea so far and isn't widespread but it's a neat idea. " Interesting hoop to jump through. We ought to just be able to download them. Oh. Wait. *grin*. Nah, vending machines make a lot more sense.
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CD vending machines More

CD vending machines

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  • i saw this last week (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I saw this last week on CNN, it was a tail story. They showed the machine, it is more the size of a small photo booth and costs eight dollars u.s. for a custom CD with I believe 6 or 8 songs. Anyways just my info..

  • Reduce piracy? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If whoever is operating the vending machines can handle the licensing requirements (which may be based on models similar to selling "singles" tapes), AND if this machine allows you to make your own CDs at about the same cost that a normal full-length CD would cost in the retail stores, then they might reduce a lot of cost-reason that make people with CD burners become pirates (not wanting to buy 12 CDs for a single song on each CD & combining them into one CD).

    The recording industry might have to go back to the "singles" model of making money though, since they wouldn't be able to force people to buy "unpopular" songs by putting them on the same album as the "popular" ones.

  • I-station (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I seem to recall that this was being tried out in the US back in... oh 1993 or so.
    I was in NYC during the New Music Seminar and they had those machines more or less everywhere (in all major music stores etc etc). They disappeared soon thereafter in any case, plagued by technical malfunctions.

    However - it's not a bad idea. BUT! the copyright holders won't be pleased. The rates for compilations is significantly lower than the ones for singles and albums. Not a Good Thing(TM) unless you happen to sell vast amounts of records with a particular song. (Or happen to be a one hit Britney Spears type pointless sort of disgusting person)

    whatever...

  • It is already patented in the USA (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Remember the company that demanded 1% of all profits from downloaded music and video? The patent that they owned was one for a kiosk where you could make your own tape or CD. It was pretty far-fetched to say that this applies to downloaded music, but this idea has been tried in the US. It has also been done with software in Japan.

    http://slashdot.org/articles/99/01/28/1042222.sh tml

  • Here's the same idea for MP3s. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.mpman.com/eng/mp3/mpstation.htm
  • At least that's what I read somewhere. The record industry wouldn't let the company sell singles burnt to CD without paying a ridiculous premium that ended up making the product far too expensive.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • hmmm (Score:1)

    by drwiii ( 434 )
    I can bet people will be tipping these things over just to get the CD burners.
  • Here, now this is good.

    The thing I mind about music is paying for tracks I'll never listen to -- I can see paying off the artist (who will still swear up and down that they're not doing it for the money) for the tracks while not getting ripped off by the record company.

    They ought to have a larger selection -- build a central database of the zillion unknown bands out there so I can build their stuff on CD, too. Maybe I can avoid having to buy a CD burner...

    ----

  • One of the jeans stores - Diesel's flagship store, IIRC - in London is doing this. Has been for 6 months or so. Read some good reviews of it, although i've never bothered to actually go look.

    I can't find a link to it at the moment - anyone got the details?

    ...j
  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    This is exactly the right metaphor for such "artists" as Richard Marx and Backstreet Boys.

    Junk food for the ears.
  • Posted by potatoe_girl:

    Just to straighten the facts out here. CD vending machines are available here in the US not just Korea. I work for a CD reseller and those vending machines have been advertising in the industry catalogs for many months now.

    But they do not burn a CD for you. They are basically just like candy vending machines only with speakers. No custom CDs.
  • Posted by Cassull:

    Will it take to make a CD? And where will I be able to buy one of these machines? Thank {insert favorite diety (i.e., God, Goddess, Buddha, Yahweh, Linus) here} that they don't have some lame-ass "Yes, I too am a Follow-The-Crowd Wannabe-Tech-Elite" name, though...
  • Has anybody found a URL for the company that makes these machines?
    How much does one cost?
    How can I get one?

  • hmmm (Score:1)

    by zonker ( 1158 )
    mee tooo :)

  • I only have one question. What happens when you put your money in the machine, and you don't get your CD? Will we have geeks rocking the vending machines and getting caught underneath?

  • well, what about producers copyrights and stuff? like its illegal to download mp3s that you dont own the cd of, wont this be the same thing?
    --
    scott miga
  • had this for a long time (1 year at least) in melbournes gaslight record shop, http://www.gaslight.com.au/

    pick any 10 track from the cd's in the box and U can create your own cd for $20. It's developed by a local company (who's name I have forgotten).
  • Doesn't anyone remember Personics? They had a "your own cassette" thing a few years back. The company's out of business, but I thinK I saw the machine still standing, disused, in a corner of Border's the other day.

    Bruce

  • We've had them in our campus SUB for a long time now.

    The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.

  • In what way is this "free movie ticket" free?
  • Am I really the only person who remembers Personics? Go up to the kiosk, select your tracks and it made a cassette for you. It was more expensive per-track than regular tapes, but you liked EVERY song on there. I really miss the format myself; I used to make a lot of Personics tapes.

    _Deirdre

  • Cool Toy (Score:1)

    by hen ( 10546 )
    I want one for my home! Burn any 5 songs in under 5 minutes and takes up no more space than a coffee vending machine.
  • I recall seing something like this in the Music Store of a local Mall over 10 years ago.

    You could pick the tunes you wanted from a specific list and get a CD with them. Don't know if they made it there or if you were actually ordering a custom from a bigger shop.

    Why can't you just buy each as a single and have them delivered as a compilation? Just deduct the cost of all the small single disks and pay for one full size CD.

    Of course this makes too much sense and we all know what happens when a good idea comes along that is good for all involved...

    One member of the group wants to make all the money so they pull out some proprietary crap and screw it up for everyone else.
  • Somehow I really doubt that the record industry is going to get behind this. The hole industry is based around having to get 5 different cd's to get five songs you like. Simply put, most albums are loaded with schlock with acouple good songs mixed in. They would simply loose too many sales to this. It would be efficient, it would be nice, it would make sense.....hence it ain't going to happen. Granted, there are some albums out there that is mostly good stuff, but they are few and far between.......
  • I saw these in Sam Goody several years ago as well. It was called Personics and you could generate custom cassettes (probably still have that cassette floating around somewhere). They had a large library of songs you could record, but they did not have every single record company sign on to license their music to Personics.

    My interest in this service was piqued again when I wanted to generate a custom CD with songs for my wedding reception. I searched the Web for the service and there was at least 1, but they didn't have any "known" music labels licensed to generate custom CDs (i.e., none of the music I actually wanted). I ultimately found 95% of the music I wanted on MP3 and just decoded them to WAV and made a standard audio CD (ahem).

    I think Personics kind of faded because it was basically a fad and probably because they just didn't get the kind of comprehensive library they needed.

    The Web could potentially transform a service like this now though -- go to a Web site and you'll have the time to really browse through a huge library of music, select what you want, and have it sent to you in the mail. We probably hung around the mall where Sam Goody was for 2 or 3 hours getting a few cassettes made because it took us forever to select the music we wanted. The web could organize a searchable database and offer browseable hiearchies (genre, artist discography, etc.) that you can't get flipping through a book.

    I don't see record labels signing on for this service though, considering their skittishness about MP3s. You'd have to be a *really* good salesperson to approach them about getting access to their libraries.
  • The problem is that you're listening to bad music to begin with. When I spend money on a CD, it's on a CD that has all "good songs" on it. The musicians who make the music I listen to make only good music. Furthermore, alot of music I listen to comes in "albums", not in "songs". If you don't have the whole album, you're missing parts of the puzzle! Get better taste!
  • Last fall, I saw one of those at Disney World. You could select all your favorite Disney songs. It was a bit more expensive, as I recall, but everything at Disney World is expensive.

    It's just a matter of time before these become commonplace. Well, time and licensing. The record companies will probably want $2/song, or something obscene like that.
  • I developed a web-interfaced search engine, cd database, and cd burning engine about 3 years ago, to do specifically this.

    I had a prototype running that would let you come up to a touch screen, enter an id, search for and select your tunes, re-order them on the cd, and commit with a "Burn!" button. Wait 15 minutes (due to the slow speed of burners those days) and out pops a color-labelled CD with a color printed cardboard sleeve.

    I've still got all the software and source code for it, of course. (You *never* toss that stuff!)

    Being a web interface, you could do it from a kiosk, or from a web site and have it mailed to you.

    The only things that stopped me from taking this to market: Lack of good partners (I'm a techie, Jim, not a businessman!), lack of money for a good entertainment-industry lawyer, and the biggest thing:

    Record companies pulled shit like "If you use our label's catalog, you can't use any others", or "No, we don't want to cut out our middleman".

    The software even took care of handling the royalties, and submitted money to the appropriate companies upon a successful burn.

    If anyone's interested in talking with me on the project, I'm still willing to bring it back to life.

    Think, now, we can offer MP3 disks with hours and hours of legal, paid-for music, as well as standard 74-minute CD's!

    David Szego
    dszego@mindslip.com
  • As long as you bought the album, mp3's and burned cd's are legal.

  • The one I saw sold the prepackaged versions, not any CD you could find.

    /me slaps self upside the head...
  • I think I've seen one of these at a highway rest stop! It had a dome you could stand under to listen to the samples of music you could get. I think everything was overpriced though. I'll stick with Circuit City.

  • Amen! (Score:1)

    by SeanNi ( 18947 )
    Can anyone imagine "Dark Side of the Moon" with some of the tracks ripped out?

    YUCK!!!!!
    --
    - Sean
  • I had a URL included when I submitted this yesterday. :P There's a link to the company at the bottom of the story in CNN's Tech section. Can't remember what it is.


    ---
  • Granted, the ticket isn't "free", but take 9.50 off the price of the CD and you leave with a CD that cost $6.25 assuming you would have bought a ticket sometime in the future anyway. I think there are enough killer movies coming out this summer to prove that assumption correct.
  • My local movie theater has a machine that sells movie sound tracks on CD. They also include a free movie ticket, all for $15.75. Not too bad of a deal since the a ticket normally costs $9.50.

  • I had an idea 2 years ago to do a website where you choose your songs and I write them to disk and mail them. . .

    I didn't get very far because I needed to make contacts in the industry for royalties.

    And several friends told me that people had tried to do this with cassette and failed.

    And now 2 places on the web do this, and a physical vending machine!!!
  • Some campanies (for example, CDuctive [cductive.com]) are allowing you to order custom CD's. You can hear RA clips of the tracks and then mix a CD at a cost-per-track. Great idea for people who don't want to wait for someone to send an MP3 and burn their own mixes. No clue on their legality and royalty sitch. I haven't used them yet, but they do have Mojo Nixon and the Toadliquors.... Xowl.
  • Yep, I made one Personics tape at Tower Records in Boston. The idea didn't take off, apparently. CD's are better than tapes, but today's market has so many other ways of getting music that it may be difficult to find a big enough niche. Drop the price per song a bit and I'd consider it...

  • (Score:2)

    by Fizzer ( 22409 )
    Oh WOW! customized CD's wow! Screw the burner. I'm gonna go to one of these vending machines!



    -hey Rob where are all the other posts? I'm pretty sure I'm not first
  • There's also one in Disneyland here in SoCal. It's not directly customer-accessible, though...you make your selections at one of several kiosks, then the employees actually perform the CD burning.

    It's a great idea; I'd like to see more of this in the US (preferably not Disney songs, though...I can't imagine actually wanting to listen to those over and over...it seems rather masochistic to me).
  • Well as soon as cd-r's become cheaper and more ubiquitious vending machines will disappear. This strikes me as a silly new idea.
  • That's a good point and as you say it benefits the industry even though it's irritating for us.

    I have a CD diskman and an old walkman where the tape player doesn't work anymore. As I don't want to keep carrying CDs around I just use the clapped out walkman to listen to the radio as all my CD's only have a few songs on each that I like (with the exception of the Police album).

    I really need to buy a CD burner or a personal MP3 player but then again I'd prefer a legal solution.

    --

  • No not more Disney music. I can't stand it!
    Never have kids unless you can cope with that music. They want it on in the car and everything.
    Yuk!
    Normally I compromise and put the radio on. If I'm feeling stressed I listen to the Police - now that's real driving music.

    --

  • We really need these (Score:3)

    by PaulJS ( 29481 ) on Monday March 22, 1999 @12:00PM (#1968693) Homepage
    I hope this idea hits mainstream very quickly. It'd be great to create custom CD's from a vending machine without the worry of it being illegal.

    --

  • I would start this out by going directly to the artists. If the publishers don't want to play nice, forget 'em.

    This would be a great system to start with local artists (or famous artists that want to try something different). Set up a kiosk in a couple of local music stores (the real ones, not the chains). Set up a website with the music on it. Start a national network of stores with Local Artists Network kiosks. Set up some intelligent agents for people who want something new (You like Rob Zombie and Mozart. Other people who like these artists also liked XXXXXXX local bands).

    A customer walks into the store. "Man I heard a great band at the bar last night. But they don't have a CD out yet. I want a few of those songs. Oh, and a buddy of mine from across the country emailed me a list of songs from a great local band there."

    Party dude walks over to the kiosk, locates his bands and pays $.50 / song ($.15 to you and $.35 to the artist). The artists get a new revenue source (without having to "break in"), the music industry actually starts behaving like a free market (record execs no longer choose who we can and cannot listen to) and you have done your part to save the free world.

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