Amazon offers free MP3s of the CDs you buy
To be perfectly honest, I can’t remember the last time I bought an actual CD. Amazon and iTunes are my go-to spots for digital music these days.
That could change now, though, with the release of AutoRip from Amazon.
Now, many CDs available on Amazon will come with a free MP3 copy when you purchase them. The digital songs will automatically be uploaded to your Cloud player, and from there you can add them to your iTunes (or whatever program you prefer).
I think this is great. I actually prefer hard copy CDs because I know that if there’s a freak computer accident I still have copies of my music.
However, it started to seem silly to buy the hard copy and immediately toss it aside after uploading it to my computer. Now I have no excuse. I can keep the back-up, but still automatically download the songs to my iPod. This is also especially convenient because my car doesn’t have an iPod jack, just a CD player.
Participating CDs will be marked with the “AutoRip” icon that you see above.
For more information about this offer from Amazon, click here.
Will you be taking advantage of this offer?
January 14, 2013 - 5:00 AM
RSS feed 
I probably will. My wife presently takes new CD’s, and older ones she hasn’t converted to digital, and uploads them to Google Play, so they’re available on the computer, her phone, her tablet, etc simply by logging in. She loves that. Me? I’m more old-school…I prefer the CD’s, but most have copyright protection, which inhibits the ability to create a backup disc that is the one I would primarily play, to help reduce physical damage potential to the real disc (I’ve had about a half-dozen get cracked, several others scratched that developed playback issues)…so I would take advantage of this for sure.
But, at the same time, I love Pandora and find myself using that at work and at home quite often, while I stick with radio or CD’s in my car most of the time. It’s certainly another good reason to buy from Amazon…
This still requires you to pay full price for a CD which may have only 2 to 3 songs worth keeping. I’ll pass on this. I backup all my music on a external hard drive.
I really like the fact that you have an automatic back up of the music. I’ve also noticed that Amazon prices are often lower or at least competitive with iTunes, so you don’t have much to lose if you can score free shipping.