Japanese kiosks start selling digital music

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By Kuriko Miyake

(IDG) -- Japan Telecom Co. Ltd. and East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) on Thursday launched a music distribution service at three major train stations in Tokyo. Using the service, rail passengers can purchase and download songs onto their MD (Mini Disk) players from kiosks in the train stations.

The "Digi-Break" digital music service is run by Japan Telecom, which runs a data center that distributes musics to the kiosks via optical fiber.

JR East, which has installed 10 terminals in kiosks at the three stations, has been working on various IT projects to turn its stations into information centers for travellers and consumers. The company plans to expand the music distribution service to eventually include other digital content, such as games and books, using the same terminals, according to Hitoshi Abe, spokesman for JR East.

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"Similar services are already operated by convenience stores but our locations have more advantages and we want to make use of those (advantages)," he said.

One of these advantages is the ability to assemble large numbers of people in one place. The number of passengers at the 12 most heavily trafficked stations in Tokyo can easily surpass the total number of daily customers one convenience store franchise has in its stores nationwide, Abe said.

JR East and Japan Telecom plan to install more terminals at other train stations in the future, with Japan Telecom also looking to expand the service outside train stations.

Japan Telecom has so far signed contracts with seven recording companies to sell approximately 500 songs through the kiosk system. It expects to enlist more record companies as time passes and plans to add around 40 new songs a month, according to a Japan Telecom spokeswoman who requested that her name not be printed.

A song costs from 200 yen (US$1.61) to 500 yen through the kiosk service and the terminal also prints out jacket pictures and song lyrics. It takes approximately 20 to 40 seconds to record a song on MD and about 30 seconds to print out a picture and lyrics for each song.

Users can check the Digi-Break Web site (http://www.digi-break.com/) to find out when new songs arrive.