Amazon AutoRip — 14 Years Late 215
An anonymous reader writes "Amazon just debuted a new service called Autorip, which grants you MP3 copies of music when you purchase the CD version. This is a technology people have been trying to introduce since 1999, but only recently have the record labels — and the courts — seen fit to allow it. 'Robertson's first company, MP3.com was one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley when it launched what we would now call a cloud music service, My.MP3.com, in 1999. The service included a feature called "Beam-It" that allowed users to instantly stock their online lockers with music from their personal CD collections. ... Licensed services like iTunes were still years in the future, largely because labels were skittish about selling music online. But Robertson believed he didn't need a license because the service was permitted by copyright's fair use doctrine. If a user can rip his legally purchased CD to his computer, why can't he also store a copy of it online? ... the labels simply weren't interested in Robertson's vision of convenient and flexible music lockers. So MP3.com was driven into bankruptcy, and the "buy a CD, get an MP3" concept fell by the wayside.'"
The biggest flaw (Score:5, Funny)
Is that I now have mp3s for CDs I gave as gifts. Unfortunately, my friends and relatives seem to have different music taste than I do, so now I have the Chicago soundtrack and Hannah Montana mp3s.
Re:I used to use that. (Score:5, Funny)
Really a shame that service got buried by the dinosaur music industry....
Now I'm going to start worrying about the raptors of the music industry ... thanks a lot.
Why would I want a CD if I have a MP3? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Helpful. (Score:4, Funny)
That extra $6 is so that you don't have to be embarrassed by a Taylor Swift CD lying around your house.