Digitrak

Digitrak is the brand name for a CD packaging format created by AGI Incorporated. Similar to AGI's earlier Digipak, the Digitrak consists of a plastic CD tray glued into a wraparound cardboard jacket featuring the release's artwork.

Offered as a "environmentally friendly" replacement for the longbox, Digitrak packaging unfolds into a shape similar to the longbox's dimensions. It was sold in this form with plastic rails along the sides to hold the packaging in place. After sale, the plastic rails would be discarded and the packaging folded down to roughly the same size as a standard jewel case.

The first CD to use Digitrak packaging was Sting's The Soul Cages, released on A&M Records in January 1991. The design was immediately controversial due to its extensive use of cardboard -- which was seen as negating any environmental benefit from its replacement of the all-cardboard longbox -- and because it was seen as much less durable than the standard CD jewel case. Aside from Bonnie Raitt's Luck Of The Draw, issued later that year on Capitol, virtually no other releases used the packaging, and it was quickly abandoned.

The design is protected under U.S. Patent Number 5,307,927. AGI inadvertently abandoned the Digitrak trademark in 1992, re-filed for it later that year, and finally canceled it in 2000.