Why is so much good back cagalogue stuff available in Japan only?

They have the money.

Lock thread.

and they actually care about the friggin' pezband. they are perfect fanatics. which is why we/i love them.

They get (arguably) better packaging too. I'm a fan of the gatefold vinyl-replica digipaks and the like, but even their jewel case packages seem to be classier somehow.

The same reason that (apparently) they frequently get a bunch of bonus tracks that aren't on our domestic releases too: because CD prices in Japan are so high that they have to give the Japanese people a reason to buy their CD's in Japan rather than buying imports

So Japanese consumer is thinking "I'll just order the new Hannah Montana CD as an import", but then suddenly notices that Paul Williams' "Someday Man" is in print domestically and decides to support the home country instead?

Or maybe he'll just ending doing like most Japanese people do, and buy a copy of "託す自殺は最もよい解決である" buy Masahiro Kawasaki instead. :)

This is a good question. Like the Brazilian stuff - a lot of it goes in and out of print as far as the US is concerned. Japan doesn't seem to have issues with availability, but Japanese imports are soooo expensive.

and they actually care about the friggin' pezband

pezband were friggin good if u liek powee pop though their import eps > US albums

High prices yes, as Stewart says. Also, they produce small amounts of these as they can still make a profit on those.

So, if a CD will sell 500, they get made, and sell out.

"So Japanese consumer is thinking "I'll just order the new Hannah Montana CD as an import", but then suddenly notices that Paul Williams' "Someday Man" is in print domestically and decides to support the home country instead?"

No, he's thinking "Shall I just go out and buy Captain Beefheart's Lick My Decals Off Baby and Tim Buckley's Starsailor - both of which have been like hen's teeth and rocking horse shit in the UK and USA for years now - right now but at exhorbitant prices, or wait another ten years to see if they ever become available on import?" and "shall I buy the domestic version of Nine Inch Nails' With Teeth with 3 bonus tracks and DJ Shadow's The Private Press with 2 bonus tracks and The Arctic Monkey's Favourite Worst Nightmare with 2 bonus tracks domestically with the extra bonus tracks, or buy the import versions which are cheaper but don't have the bonus tracks"

So Japan don't have laws against that kind of import then? In Norway, there is a law against importing CDs that are also available in Norway. The law was made after several shops in the 80s specialized on importing records from the US or Canada as they were half the price of the European ones and import would still be way cheaper.

that's a pretty fucked-up law.

Sure it is. But the record biz sure knows how to push the right buttons to get the politicians to listen to them.

"So Japan don't have laws against that kind of import then? In Norway, there is a law against importing CDs that are also available in Norway."

I don't know, but my immediate reaction is that if the imported versions have fewer tracks than the domestic ones then they're not the same, are they?

The UK theoretically has VAT & excise duty applicable on the import of CD's / DVD's, but in practice it seems that you have to be pretty unlucky / receiving such imports on a pretty regular basis / substantial scale (in excess of what might reasonably be considered to be "own use" maybe?) to actually get caught for them.