Amazon's ever-expanding breadth of services now includes digital music conversion, as the company today announced the launch of Amazon AutoRip, a service that gives customers free MP3 versions of CDs they purchase from the retailer, including all purchases made in the past.
With the new service, when Amazon customers purchase AutoRip CDs, the MP3 versions are automatically added to their Cloud Player libraries free of charge. Additionally, customers who purchased AutoRip CDs at any time since Amazon first opened its Music Store in 1998 will find MP3 versions of those albums in their Cloud Player libraries.
"What would you say if you bought music CDs from a company 15 years ago, and then 15 years later that company licensed the rights from the record companies to give you the MP3 versions of those CDs... and then to top it off, did that for you automatically and for free?" said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. "Well, starting today, it's available to all of our customers — past, present, and future — at no cost. We love these opportunities to do something unexpected for our customers."
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I wonder if it will encourage more CD sales as customers effectively don't have to choose between hard copy or file. If you get both, why wouldn't you buy the CD (or is that just me!)?