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13 Jan 13 - 10:58 AM (#3465468) Subject: Amazon AutoRip Launched From: JohnInKansas Reports appeared yesterday of a new service from Amazon, called AutoRip, that promises to provide a FREE digital copy of any album you buy from them. One report: Amazon offers free digital versions of purchased CDs < Staff, Reuters < 12 January 2013 < SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc, taking aim at Apple's dominant iTunes store, on Thursday unveiled a service that it hopes will boost digital music sales and encourage more people to use its Cloud music service. < Amazon launched Amazon AutoRip, which gives customers free digital versions of music CDs they purchase from the world's largest Internet retailer. < The digital music files are automatically stored in customer libraries in remote datacenters run by Amazon, where they are available to play or download immediately through the company's Cloud Player service, the company said. < Amazon customers who have bought AutoRip-eligible CDs at any time since the company started selling discs in 1998 will also get digital versions of that music stored in their Cloud Player libraries for free, the company added. < Amazon's MP3 digital music business has been around since 2007, but its market share is less than 15 percent, according to The NPD Group. Apple Inc's iTunes store is the clear leader, with over 50 percent of the market. < The move sparked speculation that Amazon may be able to do the same for books, making Kindle ebook copies of physical titles. "It would even be profitable for Amazon.com to pay publishers a subsidy to transition all the books purchased on Amazon.com to Kindle books," said Scott Devitt, an analyst at Morgan Stanley. "Having a digital library that is accessible only on the Kindle platform essentially locks a customer into the Kindle ecosystem forever. "If executed, it would possibly be the largest coup in company history," he added. < An Amazon spokeswoman did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment on Thursday afternoon about a book version of AutoRip. < More than 50,000 albums are available for AutoRip. Steve Boom, head of digital music at Amazon, said the company focused on music that has been the most popular among its customers during the past 15 years. < Albums include "21" by Adele; "Overexposed" by Maroon 5; "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd and "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Boom declined to estimate how many CDs Amazon expects to digitize through the new service. However, he noted that the company has sold hundreds of millions of CDs to millions of customers. < "When we picked those 50,000 titles we focused on having a substantial majority of our physical CD sales covered," he added. "People will be exposed to Cloud Player and our digital music offering, which is a good thing," Boom said. "We want to take this global." < Amazon is making a bigger push against iTunes now that the company's Kindle Fire tablets are in more consumers' hands and its Cloud Player music application is available on a range of other mobile devices, including Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. < (Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Andrew Hay and Dan Grebler) < (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013 Since the eligible albums are limited to only 50,000 for the start, it's hard to guess how successful (or maybe we care more about how useful) this may be. The few titles given didn't appear to include much folk/trad, but I haven't looked at Amazon to see how they indicate which ones are included, and since I don't have the ingrown/implanted earbuds that are popular now I can't estimate how "interesting" this may be. It does look like something that at least a few people here might want to know about, and of course we wouldn't want anyone to actually buy a recording and not get the freeby that goes with it just because they didn't know it was available. Reports from anyone who tries it would be welcome here - and don't forget to use the mudcat link to Amazon when you go to buy your samples if you find something worth listening to. John |
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13 Jan 13 - 11:28 AM (#3465474) Subject: RE: Amazon AutoRip Launched From: Maryrrf I got some "auto ripped" tracks from a CD I'd already purchased from Amazon some time ago. I like it - now I can listen on my cloud player, which is available on the Smart Phone. I've already bought the CD and may well have decided to upload songs to my computer for transfer to my MP3 player - this makes it easier. The "Auto Rip" that Amazon sent me (I didn't ask, they just put it in my Cloud Player) was from an Old Blind Dogs CD. I think this CD would definitely be classified as "folk" or "trad" but as I've purchased a number of folk/trad CDs from Amazon and this is apparently the only one available for "auto rip" I guess the options are limited in that genre. |
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13 Jan 13 - 12:34 PM (#3465505) Subject: RE: Amazon AutoRip Launched From: Stilly River Sage I found an email from Amazon just now with the information that the contents of 11 CDs purchased in the last few years were in my cloud account. This is redundant because I have already ripped these and added them to my Windows Media Player for loading in my mp3 player, but I can use it in other locations when I have a computer handy. I should get a better set of speakers for my computer at work. :) It would be nice if I could upload files to save in the cloud (the old Napster format) but I don't suppose they go for that. SRS |
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23 Apr 13 - 03:44 AM (#3507505) Subject: RE: Amazon AutoRip Launched From: Joe Offer Hi, SRS- Amazon does allow you to upload a certain number of songs for free, and an unlimited number if you want to pay for space. It's only "AutoRip-eligible" CDs that get added to your Cloud Player. There are several albums I bought where only a few cuts were added to my Cloud Player, but those albums were not marked "AutoRip." One of my favorite albums is Yiddish Songs, by Chava Alberstein. It's no longer available on CD, but Amazon has it as an MP3 album. Two songs from the album were added to my Cloud Player, but not the others. All the MP3s you buy at Amazon are added to your Cloud Player. I buy 100-cut classical collections for 99 cents, and don't bother downloading them - but it gives me a nice selection of classical music wherever I have a computer and an Internet connection. All of a sudden, I got 2218 songs to play on my cloud player. -Joe- |