Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

#31

Post by wmf » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 4:45 PM UTC

BennyMcBenBen wrote: post #29

This is great, but how did Amazon manage to pull this off? Are we effectively buying three products when we buy an AutoRip CD? (1) The physical CD, (2) The streaming rights for Amazon cloud player, (3) The MP3s which you can download from the cloud player. Is this a legal way to purchase a CD and gift it to a friend or resell it and still maintain the streaming/MP3 rights? Or does the RIAA have a problem with that? S…

Yeah, basically Amazon is paying the man for both the CD and MP3 when you buy a CD. I'm a little surprised this isn't Prime-only.

Re: Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

#32

Post by naner » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 4:50 PM UTC

pdknsk wrote: post #24

I just want to point out that the link is an affiliate link. It does no harm (other than Amazon making a bit less), and I don't know what the policy on this is, but IMO if someone makes money from this it should be the site providing the traffic (YC).

An affiliate link for Gizmodo, he must of (unwittingly?) copied it from their newsfeed.

Re: Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

#33

Post by wmf » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 4:50 PM UTC

nwh wrote: post #2

"Cloud based" implies that some processing is going on remotely, which it clearly isn't. It's just a download hosted on a CDN. Are we allowed to just slap the term on anything Internet based now?

Whether you like it or not, "a download hosted on a CDN" was renamed to "cloud storage" a while back. Also, you can play music from Amazon's site without "downloading" anything.

Re: Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

#34

Post by joemaller1 » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 4:54 PM UTC

When do we get Kindle copies of the books we bought?

Re: Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

#35

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 4:57 PM UTC

joemaller1 wrote: post #34

When do we get Kindle copies of the books we bought?

I'd happily send Amazon my physical books in exchange for the Kindle versions.

Re: Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

#36

Post by RyanMcGreal » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 4:58 PM UTC

When you buy a CD from bandcamp, they send you the physical CD but in the meantime give you an immediate link to download high-bitrate digital audio files. I much prefer possessing the audio files to streaming audio from a cloud service, which is subject to the usual legal and contractual foolishness and can be turned off at any time.

Re: Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

#37

Post by gav » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 5:06 PM UTC

elbelcho wrote: post #13

quadhome wrote: post #5

"Available to US customers only."[0] That sucks. "MP3 versions of tracks from CDs purchased from Amazon since 1998 and that are eligible for AutoRip will be delivered to your Cloud Player library." That rocks. [0] http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...

The page goes on to say that the first time you log in to your Cloud Player account they will "scan" your purchases and provide the MP3's for any eligible albums. It turns out the only album that I purchased on CD that was eligible was an album I bought as a gag gift for a friend. Here I was expecting some awesome free* MP3's but instead I got Barry Manilow.

I just logged in to Cloud Player: "We've added 1084 songs from AutoRip CD purchases for free."

Re: Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

#38

Post by Gmo » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 5:13 PM UTC

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #30

radiosnob wrote: post #19

When this is available in Germany (or basically outside the US), they got me. This is how to make things easy.

iTunes Match [0] does the same thing and is already available in dozens of countries, including Germany [1]. It works for all kinds of music, not just tracks you bought from Apple. Ripped CDs, Amazon MP3s, other sources -- and if the quality of your tracks is less than a 256Kbps AAC file, the service downloads better versions from iTunes. [0] http://www.apple.com/itunes/itunes-match/ [1] http://support.apple.com/kb/h…

No, it does not do the same thing, Apple doesn't sell CDs.

Re: Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

#39

Post by periferral » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 5:14 PM UTC

Nice. But I wish Amazon would start a trade-in program (similar to Apple). I have CDs from way back when and I'd like to able to get MP3 versions of those CDs. I'm happy to send the CDs to Amazon and have then replace them with MP3s on my cloud player. How about that for a business idea?!

edit: Apple doesn't have this but they do convert MP3s you upload to legal versions. Unsure if Amazon provides this as well. Also, while I realize it is easy to rip and upload, I just don't have the time to do this. I don't think it is worth paying someone to do this either. I'd rather Amazon take this up.

Re: Amazon to Provide CD Buyers With Cloud-Based MP3s For Free

#40

Post by commandar » Thu, Jan 10, 2013, 5:15 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #36

When you buy a CD from bandcamp, they send you the physical CD but in the meantime give you an immediate link to download high-bitrate digital audio files. I much prefer possessing the audio files to streaming audio from a cloud service, which is subject to the usual legal and contractual foolishness and can be turned off at any time.

Just checked and it looks like I can download the tracks to my PC or device for the songs that were added just like anything else in my Cloud Player.