Buying Digital Music from Japan

2025.11.03

It can be confusing and difficult at times.

Basically, a lot of Japanese services that sell downloadable music or audio files don't accept foreign customers, and the few that do still block and limit much of their catalogue for purchasing and downloading if you're not accessing their service from inside the country. I guess this is mostly due to copyright and legal issues, but the funny thing to me is that the same music can often be found legally on most music streaming services, yet it seems like they don't allow people to buy it. Oh well.

Of course you can get around the restrictions by using a VPN or similar services, but I'd rather not do that, since if they're blocking foreign purchases I guess there must be a good reason for them to do so.

I also know that CDs still exist and people still use them, but for various reasons I'd rather avoid those as well...