Amazon introduces Autorip CDs

Yeah I got an email from them earlier tonight. I bought most of them when I lived in washington DC though, I've actually bought very little from US Amazon in the last 4 years, I usually buy from the Canadian and UK sites.

 

But would you want lossless and not crapy MP3s?

 

well now, I never used their player but it seems I have 4289 songs in mine.... But none of my Beatles music is included I purchased the mono and stereo boxes from Amazon plus Love, Yellow Submarine and Let it Be Naked.

 

256kps MP3's aren't crappy. Eight tracks were crappy. 256kps MP3's are very tolerable, especially for on-the-go and assuming they are mastered well.

Lossless? Would love that option. But MP3 is better than nothing at all -- plus it's a free add-on for previous CD purchasers, so you can't beat "free".

 

Another interesting find.. Got Auto-rip Pink Floyd's DSOTM 2011 mastering of the DSOTM SACD that I bought in 2003.

 

Been trying to understand the "why", for this. Amazon isn't just doing this out of the kindness of their heart, and I doubt it's to boost CD sales (although I suppose that could be a small reason).

I actually think it's to give users another reason to avoid iTunes. Up until now, Amazon MP3's were their only competition for iTunes. But now, Amazon CD's are also competition since you get the MP3 for "free". AND it pushes their Cloud Service into the forefront more, again as a competitor to iCloud, and to a smaller extent, Google Play.

It's really quite ingenious. There's still a huge CD market, even if it is shrinking. And this is just another reason now to buy CD's from Amazon (which Apple does not offer) AND still satisfy the instant gratification factor.

 

I've bought well over 200 CD's from Amazon US over the years and have not had any notice re accessing any available downloads. I've tried to buy downloads in the past from the site and they've always been blocked due to living in the UK.

 

Me too. I see nothing in the player from my eligible purchases.

 

I got an e-mail this morning telling me that I could auto-rip the Bob Dylan CD that I ordered from Amazon yesterday. When I did that, the only "auto-rip" songs that showed up in my Amazon cloud window were from that CD, and the few mp3s I've downloaded from Amazon over the years. A half-hour or so ago, I went back to the page, and there were 1,000+ new songs I could auto-rip from CDs I've purchased from Amazon in the past. I'm not sure how exactly they're rolling this out, but I'd keep checking for the next couple of days and see whether more songs show up for you to download.

 

This notice just appeared in my account...so be patient:

 

I live in Australia and I just go the email, 21 Albums added...

My Floyd and Beatles box sets haven't been added.

 

I'm curious: For those of you who now have AutoRip MP3s added to your Amazon Cloud Player from previous purchases, what is the earliest purchase you made that is now available as an "AutoRip" MP3?

As in the screenshot below, I mean which of your Amazon Cloud Player songs, with the "AutoRip" icon in the far right column, has the earliest "Date Purchased" date, which you can get to by clicking the header to sort by that "Date Purchased" column.

For me, it's the Captain Beefheart "Grow Fins" box set I bought from Amazon back in 1999. I'm surprised if that that's the first thing I ever bought from Amazon (and that 1999 was the first time I bought anything from Amazon), since at this point it feels like I've been buying from Amazon forever. . . .

Craig.

 

The Genesis box set that I bought at an Amazon mistake price of $20 or something like that has been added.

 

Are you just using a regular Aussie email/IP address or a proxy? I haven't seen an email as yet.

 

Does anyone have new music in their cloud drive that they don't remember buying? I have a Willie Nelson album in there now that I have never owned, and I don't think I ever bought it as a gift for anyone, either.

Also, I mentioned earlier that I bought a box set with the 2cd versions of U2's War, October, and Boy. Only the original 10-track War album is now in the cloud, and the REALLY strange part is that when I link back to my original order, my invoice shows not the box set, but an older, $7.98 copy of the War CD that I know I never bought. I'm guessing these are all just glitches that will be worked out, but it's strange.

 

May 2002, for me.

In 1999, I did buy a "Barney" CD, from Amazon. That one mysteriously didn't make it to auto-rip.

 

Unfortunately, as I buy most of my CDs from the marketplace, this won't really affect me.

 

I just checked my cloud drive, and I more or less remember buying everything in it. However, do I really need to auto-rip all five CDs of The Smile Sessions? Decisions, decisions.

Once again, I think that one takeaway from this is that "I won't buy digital music because my hard drive might crash" argument is massively flawed. It's increasingly becoming harder and harder to get rid of any music that you've ever bought. My impulse download of Brian Wilson's In the Key of Disney will apparently haunt my cloud drive forever.

 

Nothing added and no email for me yet, but I'm sure it will come soon. I have bought a ton of CDs from Amazon, so it'll be interesting to see what shows up. (including some CDs that I probably don't own anymore!)

I noticed that some of the Zappa titles that I got from Amazon are showing up as Autorip titles, but unfortunately not the last four I ordered - You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Volumes 3 through 6. They're not due to arrive until tomorrow, but it would have been nice to have listened to them tonight - oh well.

 

You are killing me, today - I have stop reading your posts!

I had this happen with iTunes Match, last year - I had a few really ancient iTunes purchases rise from the dead to haunt me - stuff long out of my mind. And now the same thing with Amazon, today.

It's like Facebook all over again - you will never be rid of these purchases, even the ones you WANT To be rid of.

 

It's interesting that people outside the US are getting these e-mails and getting access to the mp3s. It is really tough to (legally) get access to music download services outside your own country. If amazon has really figured out a way to overcome this hurdle, perhaps it won't be long before I can start legally downloading music from iTunes UK, amazon.uk, etc. That would be awesome.

 

Agreed. There are some iTunes purchases I'd like to get rid of forever, the same way I'd like to trade in the occasional CD I'm sick of. But you can't. With the new iTunes cloud model, I'm apparently stuck with Avril Lavigne's horrid fourth album forever. It's honestly making me stop and think a lot more carefully before I click "buy" in the iTunes store.

 

Just got the email less than a minute ago. I'm surprised at how few CD albums I have purchased from Amazon. Only a dozen albums going back to 2004 came up - guess I must purchase more Blu-Ray discs.

 

A means to get CD buyers as customers rather than seeing them go to (eventually) another service like Apple. It's a nice idea if you want the loss files for some reason.

 

The main things haunting my cloud are the free tracks I've downloaded over the years. Tracks that, for the most part, were listened to once and then deleted or forgotten. Now I have to scan through all of them to find the stuff I actually bought. Oh well... at least I have The Stooges, Funhouse, Let It Bleed and Sinatra's The Capitol Years safely ensconced in the cloud.