Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

This is pretty awesome, but I can't help myself see it rather cynically in that I don't expect it to expand to books or movies any time soon. Especially not books.<p>Ripping a CD is so trivial and such an old practice at this point, and so many MP3s can fit on a portable device, that buying a CD already de facto gave you the MP3s for free (except for the bit where you'd have to pay to get more Cloud Player storage if you want to use Amazon to host them in the cloud for you). So it's a cool freebie that isn't really costing much.<p>But I can't rip my own books, and the Kindle cloud hosting and syncing to the last position read across devices and everything is so damn useful that there are a lot of books I own physical copies of that I probably will end up buying again digitally. So, for me at least, doing this for books actually would cost the publishers and Amazon lost revenue, unlike for MP3s. I just don't see them deciding that that revenue is less valuable than the customer goodwill it would create.<p>Bundling a Kindle version and a hardcover version at a discounted price would be a nice halfway step, though personally, I'm increasingly moving towards a "buy on Kindle, find hardcover (sometimes used) if I <i>really</i> like it" strategy.

"Available to US customers only."[0]<p>That sucks.<p>"MP3 versions of tracks from CDs purchased from Amazon since 1998 and that are eligible for AutoRip will be delivered to your Cloud Player library."<p>That rocks.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200997290" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...</a>

I just want to point out that the link is an affiliate link. It does no harm (other than Amazon making a bit less), and I don't know what the policy on this is, but IMO if someone makes money from this it should be the site providing the traffic (YC).

On clicking through to the eligible CDs many of them seem to cost less to purchase than buying the MP3s to begin with. Isn't that a bit silly? If you just want the MP3s it's sometimes cheaper now to just buy the CD anyway.<p>Edit: am I right in thinking the difference is that this offer only nets you the tracks in your cloud player account whereas buying the mp3s means you can download them too and do what you like with them? If so it seems silly that you wouldn't also be given DRM free files with this offer as it would just save you the hassle of making them yourself.

It's a little frustrating that only some discs are eligible. I wonder if that's just because they haven't ripped everything or if they have specific license agreements.<p>I'll pitch my friend's here - Murfie (<a href="https://www.murfie.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.murfie.com/</a>) does much the same thing, but also includes a marketplace so you can sell your discs. Because everything's backed by a physical CD in their warehouse, everything can just happen in the cloud and be available for streaming, but there's still a first-sale doctrine that they can point to.

I wonder how many people both buy CD's and care about CloudPlayer? I guess I don't know anyone from either party so there's a chance of there being some overlap. To me this seems like an utter waste of resources.<p>How about offering a Spotify-like streaming service? How about making CloudPlayer free for the first 20,000 songs like Google Play? How about making a web player that doesn't make me feel like I'm in Target? What about a web store that's really accessible for indie musicians (that means without labels). I really want to like Amazon Music, but at this point it doesn't really feel like a competitor in my demographic (college, computer-savvy).<p>Edit: Those who think that buying CD's is supporting artists should know that if you buy an MP3 from them instead they generally get a lot more profit.

If only the publishers would let them do this with books!

This is great, but how did Amazon manage to pull this off? Are we effectively buying three products when we buy an AutoRip CD? (1) The physical CD, (2) The streaming rights for Amazon cloud player, (3) The MP3s which you can download from the cloud player. Is this a legal way to purchase a CD and gift it to a friend or resell it and still maintain the streaming/MP3 rights? Or does the RIAA have a problem with that?<p>Shrink-wrapped CDs I have gifted friends and family years ago are now showing up in my cloud player. I have to admit that feels a little weird. How is that different than if I opened the CD and burned it before gifting it?

Nice. But I wish Amazon would start a trade-in program (similar to Apple). I have CDs from way back when and I'd like to able to get MP3 versions of those CDs. I'm happy to send the CDs to Amazon and have then replace them with MP3s on my cloud player. How about that for a business idea?!<p>edit: Apple doesn't have this but they do convert MP3s you upload to legal versions. Unsure if Amazon provides this as well. Also, while I realize it is easy to rip and upload, I just don't have the time to do this. I don't think it is worth paying someone to do this either. I'd rather Amazon take this up.

My immediate reaction to stuff like this is skeptical. The whole concept of "owning" a "cd" seems so artificial now.

A lot of comments about how no one owns a CD, its a waste of resources yada yada yada<p>For me, I own a car from 2001 so CDs are great. I buy CDs at concerts/shows, as I've long surpassed the appropriate number of t-shirts to own. I like supporting the artist, particularly if the artist is doing a signing. My girlfriend buys CDs, from Amazon, just because she likes having a physical things. She has been griping that it is a pain to her that she has to rip/burn it herself!

When you buy a CD from bandcamp, they send you the physical CD but in the meantime give you an immediate link to download high-bitrate digital audio files. I much prefer <i>possessing the audio files</i> to streaming audio from a cloud service, which is subject to the usual legal and contractual foolishness and can be turned off at any time.

When this is available in Germany (or basically outside the US), they got me. This is how to make things easy.

What stops me from buying it, getting the MP3s, then selling the wrapped CD on Ebay?

Why can't they just offer FLAC and eliminate CDs altogether?

This is pretty awesome. I often buy the CD because it's cheaper than MP3s, only to rip it and throw it away. At least this will save me a lot of the work.

When do we get Kindle copies of the books we bought?

I speculate they're just trying to de-dup content.

Great, no linux support for the amazon cloud player. Wtf? It's a web app so what does it matter what platform I'm on?

I've bought tons of CDs from Amazon, at least a hundred. Exactly two show up in the cloud player. Oh well.

About bloody time!

"Cloud based" implies that some processing is going on remotely, which it clearly isn't. It's just a download hosted on a CDN.<p>Are we allowed to just slap the term on anything Internet based now?