In the publishing world, big distributors like Baker & Taylor offer services where they'll custom-print books for you, and I have to wonder why this is not done in the record industry. Take Cecil Taylor's "Conquistador," for example: it's already been issued as a CD, so the digital mastering and artwork files are already done. CEMA could license it to one-stops, who could do one-off CDs as they are ordered by stores. It'd cost an extra couple of bucks, but so what? The label and artist would get moeny they are otherwise not getting, the consumer is happy, the lowly bootlegger goes hungry - it's win-win. This is an ideal scenario, I grant you, and I know one-stops have a long history of doing their own pressings on a unlicensed, criminal basis, but dammit!
Of course, we can cry all we want, but the fact is that stuff goes in and out of print all the time, and we're pretty spoiled in terms of what is available nowadays. Except that one thing that I want - how can THAT be out of print? Criminal!
