If you still admire CDs, Amazon's latest move will delight you. The Company has just introduced a new service called AutoRip that will provide Amazon customers with a free, cloud-based, digital MP3 version of any CDs they purchase.
Amazon is offering the service not just for new CDs but for any CD purchased on the site since 1998. Even better, customers who purchase a new CD will receive their digital copy before the actual, physical CD arrives at their doorstep.
"What would you say if you bought music CDs from a company 15 years ago, and then 15 years later that company licensed the rights from the record companies to give you the MP3 versions of those CDs ... and then to top it off, did that for you automatically and for free? Well, starting today, it's available to all of our customers – past, present, and future – at no cost," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO.
The service which has some 50,000 albums in its database, is now live. Users can access their music through a web-based player as well as any Cloud Player compatible device, including Android and iOS devices, Kindle Fire, Roku, Samsung Smart TVs and Sonos. The quality of the ripped MP3 CDs is 256 Kbps.
How to get started
On the product page of the AutoRip site, you will find the Free MP3 versions of an album underneath the "Add to Cart" button. If you purchase the CD, your confirmation page will include a green link that says "Play or download your music now." Amazon will also keep track of your past purchases and update your music library with digital copies of any AutoRip songs. Songs purchased via Amazon doeas not count against the Cloud Player storage limit.
According to Steve Boom, Amazon’s VP of Worldwide Digital Music, the company now has deals in place with the three major labels (EMI, now a part of Universal; Sony; and Warner) as well as hundreds of independent labels.
Amazon balancing it out between Physical and Digital Music
Though digital music has become a part of our routine, many of us still hang on to the CDs. “It’s almost 50 percent of the music market in the U.S.,” says Boom. “Only in 2011 did digital overtake physical in the United States, and in many countries, physical still represents 70 to 80 percent of music being sold.” At Amazon, however both the physical and digital music businesses continue to grow, he adds.
Currently, AutoRip is U.S.-only but the plan is to offer the service to the other countries including the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan where Amazon also plans to operate music stores in 2013.
Boom also reveals to Techcrunch that Amazon has invested heavily in digital music, and adds“you’ll see a lot of cool stuff” from Cloud Player this year.
It's quite clear that Amazon is a good competitor to the other growing lineup of consumer-facing cloud services including Apple, Google and Dropbox thanks to its own online mobile application store, online cloud storage called Cloud Drive, and recently introduced a mobile application called Cloud Photos. The Company also claims that purchasing AutoRip CDs tends to be cheaper than buying digital-only versions from iTunes.