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.
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