I’ve often wondered how the CD industry works.  I suppose this is beginning to become irrelevant, because CD’s are dying in favor of iTunes, but I still wonder.  How many CDs do they print at a time, and is it like books, where they are fairly difficult to produce on demand?  It might be fairly easy to print CD’s on demand, but even considering that, do they still have mass distribution targets to meet?  Also, I imagine huge CD printers and CD labelers, but I’m not sure if that’s actually the case, where they stamp several hundred at a time, or whether it is just stamping one by one. 

Perhaps they have disc printers that laser cut the discs so you don’t need labels at all.  Is there a different process for audio books than there is for CDs?  I don’t know if it’s even possible for an entire industry to collapse in favor of digital formatting, but I imagine that if it is, that the first one to go is going to be the music industry.  I can’t even remember the last time I bought a CD, unless it was blank and I intended to burn it.  I suppose I may have bought one or two and then tossed them as soon as I digitally uploaded them.

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