The cool music you can't buy on iTunes, unless you're in Japan

Paul Collins, writing for Slate, laments all the cool music that people outside of Japan are missing out on via the iTunes Store. As you know, if you don't have a credit card tied to an address in a particular country you can't buy any music from that country's flavor of the iTunes Store. If you're in to J-Pop, or any of the other vibrant Japanese music scenes, this means in order to take advantage of the massive catalog on iTunes Japan you need to be in (or at least have a credit card in) Japan.

This isn't unique to the Japanese iTunes Store, of course, every country specific store also has a bunch of songs you can't buy outside of that country's iTunes Store. Collins wonders why these borders are enforced for digital downloads, but I imagine it is another sign of the Recording industry's deathgrip on content. Music wants to be free, geographically speaking that is.

If you're jonesing for some Japanese music via iTunes there are work around. Give something like jbox a try.