Maxell DVD media to sport cheap leather skin

Are these synthetic leather DVD discs from Maxell real? There seems to be a 2006 article on them despite a Maxell Japan press release about them in 2008.
Anyway, as far as DVD-R/RW discs go, these are pretty expensive ($11 for 10 discs?). I imagine that the discs will be a lot heavier than traditional recordable media, and I bet that because of that, a lot of disc drives will be damaged because of it. But hey, if you want your DVD media to resemble the skin on a football or basketball, then here ya go!
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