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.'"
Re:ugh, mp3-only (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nice, but that raises a new question. (Score:5, Informative)
I would subscribe to magazine more if the E version was not attached to a crashy nasty app AND were less than or even the SAME AS a print subscription.
Cycle World, is about $9.00 a year for a mailed to me subscription, It's $11.99 on the ipad. yeah. BITE ME Cycle World, I'll just torrent the issues from Pirate bay.
That's not how MP3 used to work. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Amazon: welcome to the 1990's; 128 sucks (Score:4, Informative)
It varies depending on the album. Recent purchases I've made have been encoded using LAME 3.97 with its V0 setting (~245 kbps VBR), this seems to be the default for MP3s encoded by Amazon. One self-published album I grabbed that was MP3 only was 320 kbps CBR. The MP3's I've downloaded via the site and via the downloader are bit-for-bit identical.
It's a pitty Amazon isn't more forthcoming on what the encoding is before you buy it, but I'd imagine whatever album you grabbed was simply provided to them as a 128 kbps file from the source.
Re:Nice, but that raises a new question. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually it demonstrates the flaws (from the publisher's perspective) of the traditional bookselling business model. Books (dead-tree format) are sold on consignment. They are shipped to retailers, without payment, and money comes in as retailers sell them. Unsold copies get shipped back and destroyed (which costs money). Because returns are a cost it is sometimes cheaper to discount the book just to get rid of it (even at a slight loss) without having to return it. Ebooks don't have this flaw, so there is no reason to discount them.
Not that you should be sympathetic (I'm not), but it's a little more complicated than boundless greed.
Re:I didn't want the CD anyway (Score:4, Informative)
Alright, but every other format has the same problem. CDs are still higher quality than compressed files of the same track.
Re:The biggest flaw (Score:5, Informative)
if you mark the order as a gift, i.e. buy off a wishlist, it won't be added to your library
Re:Nice, but that raises a new question. (Score:4, Informative)
Unsold copies get shipped back and destroyed (which costs money).
That may be true for hardcovers, I don't really know. But for softcovers the practice has been to rip the front cover off and send it back, while letting the retailer dump them in the trash. Same thing with magazines. I learned how it all worked as a young teenager when I discovered that once a month, the convenience store near my school bus-stop would load up the trash-bin out back with an entire month's worth of porn magazines, all missing the front covers. What they couldn't legally sell to me, I could now dumpster-dive for free.