AutoRip

I feel a little bit like a corporate shill for posting about this, but I have to say I like Amazon's new "AutoRip" policy.  I know some vinyl labels have come with download cards, and some small labels, often through soundcloud, will offer immediate mp3 downloads with purchases of hard-copy albums (and all of said policies rock, by the way, and should be further encouraged), but I'm surprised its taken so long for a major player like Amazon to get hip.

Basically, it just means you get an instant mp3 copy of the album when you order, ostensibly ripped from the CD you've just ordered (not really, of course) while you wait for it to arrive in the mail. Another cool thing is that they also retroactively add music you've bought in the past - Some Bruce Springsteen CD I bought my uncle for Christmas last year is just waiting for me to play or download it to my Amazon Cloud Player.

Yeah, that's the downside; they're railroading you into use their software. It's free and all, but how many of us would ever use the Amazon software if we weren't being forced to? Still, you CAN download it all off your Amazon cloud to your desktop and then play it without their player like any other mp3.  And having your stuff backed up onto Amazon-hosted cloud drive isn't exactly a bad thing. So you don't really have to use their player at all except to download the stuff initially; and their player seems fine, I guess, anyway.

Overall it's definitely a good thing, and probably something every site that sells CDs or vinyl should be looking to evolve into. But maybe without the pushy software.