i enter (or at least want to enter) a lot of CDs from a print-on-demand service, Kunaki.com, and i have pretty much no idea what to set the release country as.
the docs specifically say the release country is not where the CDs are manufactured, so that’s out (but if it helps, kunaki manufactures in New York, USA)
We ship to all countries with a reliable postal system.
they could probably be considered worldwide, but worldwide physical releases are pretty controversial (which i understand).
i could go with the artist’s location, but most of the time i have no idea. i can sometimes make a vague guess based on their accent but that’s obviously far from ideal.
the only option left is to manually enter all the countries they ship to, which is a pain, and not really that accurate to me… the artist didn’t say “i will release this to Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium…”, and they didn’t intentionally exclude any countries like digital media sometimes does… they wanted to release it mostly worldwide, that’s why they picked a print on demand service like this. that’s why i did, anyway…
so i guess i have two questions:
what would you do?
if the consensus is to do the last option, can somebody pretty please make a script or something that lets you input all these countries at once? i will drive myself crazy
I only could find Digital Media in your 10+ first pages of edits but, about that Kunaki, it seems they sell CD-R (not real pressed CD), no?
https://kunaki.com/faq.asp What is the quality of the manufactured product? CDs and DVDs manufactured in our facility look and feel as good or better than similar products found in retail outlets. We print digitally in full color directly on the disc surface, and case inserts and covers. We don’t use peel-able labels or inkjet printers. Our cases are sealed with cellophane over-wrap.
They say the print artwork on the CD.
They avoid saying they press CD, so I think they burn CD-R.
Like all other On Demand CD services I have seen so far, anyway, it’s totally normal that they don’t make a master mould for On Demand stuff, in fact.
On topic now, it seems they are in the USA as in their info pages they mostly talk about USA and then about the foreign countries, in https://kunaki.com/faq.asp for instance.
And https://kunaki.com/prices.asp defaults on USA.
I would either put USA (as this is where it is released from) or Worldwide (as the intended market). As Worldwide will upset some people, then USA seems logical.
I can see an argument for putting the artist’s own country too as no doubt there will be time they get a batch printed to hand out at gigs\fanclub\etc. You can be fairly certain copies will be released in their home country.
The lack of label, and just doing a “direct from manufacture” does make this break outside normal guidelines.
Please, I beg you, not to ape the bizarre digital shop thing as that is an awful mess that really just says “Spotify sells in these countries” and not really a Release area (lets leave that argument in other threads where it has been talked to a dead end).
It is the Manufacture and Distribution thing that confuses it.
I have a number of UK Punk CDs\LPs that were manufactured in 1980/90s France but only ever sold in the UK. In those cases they will have been shipped in bulk back to the UK and it is the UK Label that would then have Released and Sold them from the UK. So that is simple. France is just a “Made in” credit.
This is why I think it is legit for the Artist also be the Country. It is them who is actually releasing, just it is all being posted from the USA to keep things simple.
For example, if it is a small niche Spanish artist using this service they may never actually sell a single CD into USA. I think it would be legit for them to call it a Spanish release.
Though everything is “literally” released from a New York address, so I think USA should be part of that chain. Tricky. Toss a coin.
This small world we now live on makes it harder to shove everyone into nice neat database boxes.
i agree with this! this is probably what i will start to do in the future… the artist’s home country if that’s where they’re most well-known because it’s where it was most intended to be released, and USA because it’s where the company is most optimized for.
i’ll just link to this conversation in the annotation of every Kunaki release so people can’t be too mad at me if they disagree
When I look at the website Kunaki give themselves every job except “label”:
digital cd / dvd manufacturing, publishing, distributing, fulfilling machine.
And looking at some of your examples I don’t see any “label” as such on the package. The more I think, the more this becomes “Manufactured in USA”, “Manufactured by / Published by / Distributed by Kunaki”
But it is really Self Released by the artist. It is they (you) who are sending it out, just asking some fella in New York to write the address and add a stamp (distribution). And I bet you have acquired a few yourself to Release direct to fans \ mates \ your Nan.
So much simpler in the old days when a couple of people jumped in a Ford Transit and went to pick up a box load of CDs\LPs to sell at a gig.
Not a problem. I am used to getting the blame for things
i will drive myself crazy
