Amazon is offering customers that purchase CDs a free digital version saved to its cloud storage service.
The AutoRip feature allows customers to receive digital copies of new purchases for more than 50,000 albums.
The program also offers AutoRip copies of CDs customers have purchased over the last 15 years, a timetable that coincides with the launch of Amazon’s Music Store.
Customers curious to know if their albums warrant an Auto Rip copy can search for the Auto Rip logo found beside each album.
Those purchases are then added to the customer’s Cloud Player where they can be played back or downloaded at a high 256kbps bitrate.
Amazon is providing the storage space for your AutoRip CDs at no charge which means the storage limit is not affected by the company’s new program.
The company will auto add any albums purchased since 1998 if they are currently part of the accepted Auto Rip CDs.
Those albums will then be playable via any Cloud supported device such as tablets, smartphones and PCs.
Steve Boom, head of digital music at Amazon, said the company focused on music that has been the most popular among its customers during the past 15 years.
Albums include “21” by Adele; “Overexposed” by Maroon 5; “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd and “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.
Boom declined to estimate how many CDs Amazon expects to digitize through the new service. However, he noted that the company has sold hundreds of millions of CDs to millions of customers.
“When we picked those 50,000 titles we focused on having a substantial majority of our physical CD sales covered,” he added.
Amazon is hoping the new service boosts digital music sales and encourages more people to use its cloud music service.
“People will be exposed to Cloud Player and our digital music offering, which is a good thing,” Boom said. “We want to take this global.”
Amazon’s MP3 digital music business has been around since 2007, but its market share is less than 15 percent, according to The NPD Group. Apple’s iTunes store is the clear leader, with over 50 percent of the market.
