Let ‘er AutoRip
Amazon introduced a new service this week called “AutoRip.” If you’ve bought any of 50,000 different CDs from them since 1998, they’ll provide free an MP3 version via their cloud service. I’ve never found ripping a CD exactly burdensome, so I’m not sure how how useful the new service will be — especially given the small number of albums currently available.
But it did get people thinking. Here’s One Foot Tsunami:
Still, AutoRip is painfully close to something I’ve found myself pining for since starting to use a Kindle e-reader: free Kindle copies of purchased physical books. Unlike CDs, there’s no easy way for book purchasers to create their own digital copy, so an “AutoRip for Books” would provide much more benefit. Someday, perhaps.
The idea was quickly endorsed by both Gruber and Dalrymple. Of course, to sharp VodkaPundit readers there’s nothing new here. From February of 2010:
When it comes to books, the physical media is what still attracts most of us hairless primates. The electronic edition would be the bonus, the convenience, the thing I could learn to live with — as a bonus.
So Apple and Amazon should absolutely include an ebook with every physical book you buy. Free? Hell, I’m open to paying a buck or two more. And then I’d read more books again, and buy more books again. Win-win.
Avantage: VodkaPundit.
I thought the same thing about autorip, but then someone mentioned that they can listen to music at work with it rather than having to hook up their iPod. I thought that was a fair point.
Some comic books are already doing this, with digital downloads either free, or for a small extra charge.
Now that Amazon has a CloudPlayer app for IOS I was able to delete over two gigs of music from my phone and still have it available, without paying for iTunes Match. That’s a win right there, especially on a 16 gig phone. And AutoRip just added a bunch more songs, and it’ll probably add more as Amazon negotiates better deals with the labels.
Baen has been doing this with hardcover editions of the popular Honor Harrington series for years. Each new book has several of the previous books on a disc inside the cover. Read more of the backstory, buy the paperback for your shelf. It’s a shame that the old line publishing houses can’t get their brains wrapped around this simple marketing technique that actually sells more books.
Isn’t this basically the same thing that killed MP3.com? I’ll assume Amazon has already cut deals with the RIAA and the major labels.